Over 60 soldiers were lost in the great defeat, and small numbers
now and then, while the auxiliaries, less skilled in fighting and chiefly unarmored,
succumbed in hordes. Gomara says about 50 soldiers, 6 horses,
and not many Indians; Herrera modifies to ‘a little over’ 50; Torquemada
advances to ‘less than 100,’ and Clavigero to ‘more than 100 Spaniards.’
Hernandez, in his Estadist. Méj., 232, computes such curiously exact figures as
107 Spaniards, 18,915 Tlascaltecs, and 33,240 Aztecs. Ixtlilxochitl, ever eager
to enlarge upon the services of his race, claims that 30,000 Tezcucans fell out
of 200,000 employed, Hor. Crueldades, 51; but this is evidently exaggerated.
‘En que murieron infinitos.’ Gomara, Hist. Mex., 213; Herrera, dec.
iii. lib. ii. cap. viii.; Clavigero, Storia Mess., iii. 232-3. Bustamante raises
the number killed to ‘150,000 at least.’ Chimalpain, Hist. Conq., ii. 74;
Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit., to 240,000, including most of the nobles; while Torquemada,
i. 577, observes ‘que de veinte partes, no quedò vna, aviendo perecido,
y muerto las diez y nueve,’ he and several others allowing the estimate of
fully 300,000 inhabitants. The survivors are estimated at from 30,000 persons,
by Torquemada to 70,000 warriors by Oviedo, iii. 516.