Book Description

Excerpt from The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz Del Castillo, Vol. 2 of 2: Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain When Cortes found himself so well provided again with muskets, powder, crossbows, and horses, and observed how impatient the whole of us, officers as well as soldiers, were to commence the siege of the great city of Mexico, he desired the caziques of Tlascalla to furnish him with 10,000 of their troops to join us in the campaign of Tezcuco, as this was one of the largest towns of New Spain, and next in importance to Mexico. The elder Xicotencatl (now called Don Lorenzo de Vargas) assured him that not only the 10,000, but many more troops were at his service, and that the brave cazique Chichimalatecl, our particular friend, would himself march out at their head. Cortes returned him the most sincere thanks, and, after having reviewed the whole of his troops, whose exact number I have forgotten, we commenced our march on the fourth day after Christmas of the year 1520. The first night we quartered in a township which was subject to Tezcuco, and were provided with everything we required. From this place we arrived on the Mexican territory, where, if possible, we observed still greater precaution, and always had four of the horse-patrol and an equal number of foot in advance to explore the defiles, as we had been informed on our march that a very formidable mountain pass had been blocked up by large trees which the enemy had felled when notice of our approach was received in Mexico and Tezcuco. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.