ready for the foe. The population was estimated at five or six thousand families, supported in part by a number of gardens within the city, and subject to it were three towns in the valley, containing an equal number of people.
Four leagues south of Quauhquechollan lay Itzocan,46 a well built city, with a hundred temples, says Cortés, and a population of three or four thousand families, situated in a fertile, irrigated valley, which from the climatic protection afforded by the sheltering mountains included cotton as one of its staples, and had also some attractive gold mines. The place lay at the foot of a hill, surmounted by a strong turreted fort, and offered a striking resemblance to Málaga, it was said. The level sides were protected by the banks of a deep river, which here formed a semicircle, and all round the city ran a wall five feet high, well provided with towers and stone ammunition. The cacique was an alien, appointed by Montezuma, whose niece he had married, and possessed strong sympathies for the lake government, which maintained a fine garrison. To reduce the place, so as to root out a stronghold for the dissemination of Aztec influence,