othing and any amount of
good looks, met us at each turn with hands extended, and a cry of
"Centavo, centavo!"

It was to Tlaxcala that Cortez and his small band of followers retreated
when the natives of the valley of Mexico rose and in desperation drove
him from their midst. Here, after some months devoted to recuperation
and being joined by reinforcements from Cuba, he prepared to lay siege
once more to the Aztec capital. Part of this preparation consisted in
building a number of small, flat-bottomed boats in pieces, so that they
could be transported over a mountainous district, and put together on
the shore of Lake Texcoco, thus enabling him to complete the investment
of the water-begirt city. It sounds ludicrous in our times to read of
the force with which the invading Spaniards laid siege to a nation's
capital. His "army" consisted of forty cavalrymen, eighty arquebusiers
and cross-bowmen, and four hundred and fifty foot-soldiers, armed with
swords and lances, to which is to be added a train of nine small cannon,
about the size of those which are carried by our racing yachts of to-day
for the purpose of firing salutes. Of course he had a crowd of
Tlaxcalans with him, the number of which is variously stated, but who
could not be of much actual use. More than one of these veracious
Spanish historians states the number to have been one hundred and twenty
thousand! So large a body of men would have been a hindrance, not a
help, in the undertaking. Cortez neither had nor could he command a
commissariat suitable for such an army, and it must be remembered that
the siege lasted for months. "Whoever has had occasion to consult the
ancient chronicles of Spain," says Prescott, "in relation to its wars
with the infidels, whether Arab or American, will place little
confidence in numbers." We all know how a French imperial bulletin can
lie, but Spanish records are gigantic falsifications in comparison. This
siege lasted for over six months, and finally, on August 13, 1521,
Cortez entered the city in triumph, hoping to enrich himself with
immense spoils; but nearly all valuables, including those of the royal
treasury, had been cast into the lake and thus permanently lost, rather
than permit the avaricious Spaniards to possess them. Cortez's final
success of this invasion caused it to be called a "holy war," under the
patronage of the church! Had he failed, he would have been stigmatized
as a filibuster.

A brief visit was pai