recommended that through Cholula, but the Cempoalans representing the Cholultecs as highly treacherous, and devoted to the Aztecs, the Tlascalan route was chosen, and four Totonac chiefs were despatched to ask permission of the republican rulers to pass through their lands. A letter served as mystic credentials, and a red bushy Flemish hat for a present.15
After a stay of four days the army proceeded up the valley, without leaving the customary cross, it seems, with which they had marked their route hitherto; the reason for this was the objection of Padre Olmedo to expose the emblem to desecration in a place not wholly friendly to them.16 The road lay for two leagues through a densely settled district to Iztacmixtitlan, the seat of Tenamaxcuicuitl, a town which Cortés describes as situated upon a lofty height, with very good houses, a population of from five to six thousand families, and possessing comforts superior to those of Xocotlan. “It has a better fortress,” he
writes, “than there is in half Spain, defended by a wall, barbican, and moats.” The cacique who had invited the visit made amends for the cold reception of the previous chief, and the Spaniards remained for three days waiting in vain for the return of the messengers sent to Tlascala. They then passed onward, reinforced by about three hundred warriors from the town.17 Two leagues’ march brought them to the boundary of Tlascala, conspicuous by a wall of stone and mortar nine feet in height and twenty in breadth, which stretched for six miles across a valley, from mountain to mountain, and was provided with breastworks and ditches.18
Between latitude 19° and 20° ranges of hills cut the plain of Anáhuac into four unequal parts. In the centre of the one eastward stood the capital of Tlascala. The state so carefully protected was about the same small territory which we now see on the map,19 with twenty-eight towns, and one hundred and fifty thousand families, according to the rough