their city.

After waiting two days for the result of our message without receiving any
return, we proposed to march to Zumpacingo, the chief town of the district
in which we then were, the principal people of which had been summoned to
attend at our quarters, but had neglected our message. We accordingly
began our march for that place early of a morning, having Cortes at our
head, who was not quite recovered from his late illness. The morning was
so excessively cold, that two of our horses became so exceedingly ill that
we expected them to have died, and we were all like to perish from the
effects of the piercing winds of the _Sierra Nevada_, or Snowy Mountains.
This occasioned us to accelerate our march to bring us into heat, and we
arrived at Zumpacingo before daybreak; but the inhabitants, immediately on
getting notice of our approach, fled precipitately from their houses,
exclaiming that the _teules_ were coming to kill them. We halted in a
place surrounded with walls till day, when some priests and old men came
to us from the temples, making an apology for neglecting to obey our
summons, as they had been prevented by the threats of their general
Xicotencatl. Cortes ordered them to send us an immediate supply of
provisions, with which they complied, and then sent them with a message to
Tlascala, commanding the chiefs of the republic to attend him at this
place to establish a peace, as we were still ignorant of what had taken
place in consequence of our former message. The Indians of the country
began to entertain a favourable opinion of us, and orders were given by
the Tlascalan senate that the people in our neighbourhood should supply us
plentifully with provisions.

At this time some of the soldiers resumed their mutinous complaints,
particularly those who had good houses and plantations in Cuba, who
murmured at the hardships they had undergone and the manifold dangers with
which we were surrounded. Seven of their ringleaders now waited on Cortes,
having a spokesman at their head, who addressed the general in a studied
oration, representing, "That above fifty-five of our companions had
already perished during the expedition, and we were now ignorant of the
situation of those we had left at Villa Rica. That we were so surrounded
by enemies, it was hardly possible to escape from being sacrificed to the
idols of the barbarians, if we persisted in our present hopeless
enterprize. Our situation, they said, was worse