nd
war-whoop of the enemy; here some were calling out to the canoes to
attack the brigantines, the bridges, and the causeways; there the
Mexicans drove their troops together with loud yells to cut through the
dykes, deepen the openings, drive in palisades, throw up entrenchments,
while others cried out for more lances and arrows; in another place the
Mexicans shouted to the women to bring more stones for the slings;
between all which was heard the dismal din of the hellish music of
drums, shell trumpets, and particularly the horrible and mournful sound
of the huge drum of Huitzilopochtli; and this infernal instrument, whose
melancholy tone pierced to the very soul, never ceased a moment. Day and
night did all this din and noise continue without intermission; no one
could hear what another said; and so my comparison of the belfry is the
most suitable I can imagine.

I will now add a few words about Quauhtemoctzin's outward appearance.
This monarch was between twenty-three and twenty-four years of age, and
could in all truth be termed a handsome man, both as regards his
countenance and his figure. His face was rather of an elongated form,
with a cheerful look; his eye had great expression, both when he assumed
an air of majesty or when he looked pleasantly around him; the colour of
his face inclined more to white than to the copper-brown tint of the
Indians in general. His wife was a niece of his uncle Motecusuma; she
was a young and very beautiful woman.

With regard to the dispute between Sandoval and Holguin as to which
could claim the honour of Quauhtemoctzin's capture, Cortes settled it
for the present by observing, that a similar dispute once happened among
the Romans between Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sylla, when the latter
took king Jugurtha prisoner, who had fled for safety to the house of his
father-in-law Bocchus. "When Sylla," said Cortes, "made his triumphal
entry into Rome, he led Jugurtha by a chain, among his trophies of
victory. This Marius considered Sylla had no right to do without asking
his permission, he (Marius) being commander-in-chief, and Sylla having
merely acted upon his orders; but as Sylla belonged to the order of the
patricians, these declared in his favour, they being opposed to Marius,
as a stranger of Arpinum, and a man who had risen from the lowest ranks,
though he had been seven times consul. From this circumstance arose
those civil wars between Marius and Sylla; but the question as t