Cortés to take a more northern route and join him at Calpulalpan, but finding that the general preferred the Amaquemecan road, he had hastened to meet the Spaniards on the lake. The approach of this personage had made the court of Tezcuco more pliable to one whose designs were well understood. When Ixtlilxochitl therefore came near the city, the elder brother, Cohuanacotzin, made efforts for a closer conciliation with himself and Cacama.47 The opportunity was favorable, for the indisposition of Cortés to enter actively into the plans of the former, and his advance on Mexico, with proclaimed friendship for Montezuma, made Ixtlilxochitl not averse to the advances of his brothers, particularly since he intended this in no wise to interfere with his schemes. The result of the negotiation was that he found himself admitted with great pomp into his paternal city, wherein he hoped some day to displace Cacama. Imbued more than ever with his ambition, he hastened to intercept the Spanish captain, in order personally to promote his views and induce him to come northward to Tezcuco and to his own capital. Cortés was full of promises, but it did not just then suit him to disarrange the plan he had formed, and so Ixtlilxochitl had to
It is this meeting no doubt which has been wrongly extended by several authorities into a visit to Tezcuco.48
As the Spaniards approached Iztapalapan,49 Cuitlahuatzin, the brother of Montezuma and lord of the city, came forth in company with Tezozomoc, lord of the adjoining Culhuacan, and a number of other caciques and nobles,50 to escort his guests to their quarters in his palace. The city with its ten thousand to twelve thousand houses was constructed partly on piles, and crossed by canals, on either side of which rose substantial buildings, chiefly of stone, a large proportion being, according to the conqueror, “as fine as the best in Spain, both in extent and construction.”