It was on the following day that the Mexicans who still survived the slaughter and famine, evacuated the city. It was a desert—but a desert covered with dead. The men who rushed in to plunder,—plundered as if robbing graves. Between one and two hundred thousand people perished during the three months' siege, and their festering bodies tainted the air. The booty, though considerable, was far beneath the expectations of the conquerors; yet there was doubtless enough to reward amply the stout men at arms who had achieved a victory unparalleled in the annals of modern warfare.
"What I am going to say is truth, and I swear, and say Amen to it!"—exclaims Bernal Diaz del Castillo, in his quaint style—"I have read of the destruction of Jerusalem, but I cannot conceive that the mortality there exceeded that of Mexico; for all the people from the distant provinces, which belonged to this empire, had concentrated themselves here, where they