Father Melgarejo then consoled our general for the loss of his two grooms, which so greatly afflicted him. While we soldiers were thus gazing upon the city of Mexico, we again by degrees recognized those spots which had become so memorable to us, and we pointed out to each other the great temple of Huitzilopochtli, the Tlatelulco, and the causeways, with the bridges over which we made our disastrous retreat. At this moment Cortes sighed more deeply than he had previously done for the loss of his two grooms, whom the enemy had carried off alive. And it was from this day our men began to sing the romance, which commences—
"En Tacuba esta Cortes
Con su esquadron esforsado,
Triste estava y mui penoso
Triste y con gran cuidado,
La una mano en la mexilla
Y la otra en el costado," etc.
As our general was thus standing in deep contemplation, the bachelor Alonso Perez, who was appointed fiscal after the conquest of New Spain, and lived in Mexico, stepped up to him and said, "General, you should not thus give way to grief; it is ever so during war time, and men will certainly never have occasion to sing of you as they did of Nero,—