mostly died. The streets, and squares, and houses, and the courts of the Tlatelolco were covered with dead bodies; we could not step without treading on them; the lake and canals were filled with them, and the stench was intolerable.
"When all those who had been able, quitted the city, we went to examine it, which was as I have described; and some poor creatures were crawling about in different stages of the most offensive
disorders, the consequences of famine and improper food. There was no water; the ground had been torn up and the roots gnawed. The very trees were stripped of their bark; yet, notwithstanding they usually devoured their prisoners, no instance occurred when, amidst all the famine and starvation of this siege, they preyed upon each other.
1 The remnant of the population went, at the request of the conquered Guatemozin, to the neighboring villages, until the town could be purified and the dead removed."