drag them into the water. Throwing off these assailants by main strength, Alvarado and his men steadily and expeditiously moved on. Meanwhile, the vanguard under Sandoval having reached the second gap, were waiting until the portable bridge should be brought up to enable them to cross it. Goaded with the arrows which were discharged upon them in clouds from the Aztec canoes, they grew impatient of the delay, and began to cast anxious glances backward along the causeway for the appearance of the bridge. Suddenly the appalling news was passed along that the bridge had stuck so fast at the first opening that it could not be pulled up. The weight of the men and the heavy baggage crossing it had fastened it into

SANDOVAL.

the earth so firmly as to defy extrica tion. When this awful intelligence reached the vanguard, order and command were at an end; uproar and confusion ensued; and, seized with the instinct of self-preservation, each man tried to shift for himself. Flinging themselves headlong into the gap, they struggled with the Mexican warriors in the water, upsetting their canoes in their drowning agonies. Rank after rank followed, each trampling upon the bodies of its predecessors, and floundering among the canoes which lay between them and the opposite side. Sandoval and a few of the cavalry

swam their horses across; some of the foot also were able to reach the side of the causeway and climb up; but of the vanguard the great majority were drowned, or slain, or carried off wounded in the Mexican canoes. Meanwhile, on came the rest of the army; men, carriages, guns, baggage, all were swept into the trench, which was soon choked up by the wreck. Over this bridge of broken wagons, bales of cotton, and the dead bodies of their companions and enemies, Cortes and his veterans were able to reach the other side of the trench with less difficulty. Here, joining Sandoval and the few survivors of his band, they dashed along the causeway towards the third and last opening, regardless of the darts and arrows which the Mexicans discharged among them from their canoes. Reaching the third trench, they crossed it in the same manner as the last, but

without so much loss, and were rapidly approaching the mainland, when, looking back through the dim morning twilight, they saw Alvarado and his rearguard pent up on the causeway between the second and third bridges, and almost overborne by the Mexicans who surrounded them. Cortes, Sandoval, and a few of the horse instantly wheeled round to the rescue; and, recrossing the third gap, shouted their battle-cry and interposed between the Spaniards and their pursuers. This timely succour enabled most of the infantry to escape; and at length all had crossed the opening except Cortes, Sandoval, Alvarado, and a few others. Cortes, Sandoval, and the rest soon followed, carried through by their horses; and only one man remained on the Mexican extremity of the causeway. It was Pedro de Alvarado: his horse was slain; and he was standing on the brink, surrounded by enemies ready to drag him off, should he plunge into the trench. Five or six warriors were already advancing from behind to seize him, when, casting one glance at the opposite edge where his countrymen were waiting him, he planted the end of his long lance among the rubbish which choked up the gap, and, rising in the air, cleared it at a bound. The spot where this tremendous feat was executed still bears the name of Alvarado's Leap.

The Mexicans now desisted from the pursuit; and the relics of the Spanish army, advancing along the remainder of the causeway, entered Tlacopan. Here they did not remain long, being anxious to place themselves beyond the reach of the Mexicans, and to arrive at Tlascala, the city of their faithful allies. They were now able to count the losses which they had sustained during the night. About four hundred and fifty Spaniards, and nearly four thousand Tlascalans, had been drowned, slain, or made prisoners during the passage along the causeway; a loss which, added to the numbers killed within the city, reduced the army to little more than a fourth of what it had been when it entered Mexico ten days before. But the most deplorable part of the calamity, in the eyes of Cortes, was the loss of all the artillery, firearms, and ammunition, not so much as a musket remaining among the five hundred who survived. Still, under this accumulation of misfortunes, his heart did not sink; and his resolution was taken not to leave the country till he had re gained his former footing in it, and annexed it as a province to the dominions of his sovereign.

His first object was to reach Tlascala, where he might recruit the

strength of his men-almost all of whom were stiff with woundsand arrange his future proceedings. After many difficulties, and another great battle on the plain of Otumba, in which he defeated the Mexicans, he reached it on the 9th of July, 1520. They were kindly received by the generous mountaineers, who withstood all the solicitations of the Mexican sovereign, Cuitlahua, Montezuma's brother and successor, that they would assist him in driving the Spaniards out of the country.

It was early in autumn, before Cortes left Tlascala. His intention was first to punish several states of Anahuac which had revolted during his absence in Mexico, especially the districts of Tepeaca and Cachula; and then, after having reduced the whole country east of the Mexican valley, to return to the capital itself, and take it by storm. With a force so reduced as his, without cannons or other firearms, this was an apparently hopeless enterprise; but hopeless was a word of which Cortes did not know the meaning. Fortunately, while engaged in subduing the eastern districts of Anahuac, he received reinforcements which he never anticipated. Velasquez, ignorant of the fate of the expedition which he had sent under Narvaez, and supposing that Cortes was by this time a prisoner in the hands of his rival, had despatched a ship with stores, arms, and ammunition to the colony of Villa Rica. The vessel touched at the port; the captain and his men disembarked, suspecting nothing, and were instantly seized by the officer of Cortes; nor did it require

CORTES RETURNS TO MEXICO.

75 much persuasion to induce the whole crew to enlist under the standard of a man of whom they had heard so many eulogies. A second vessel sent by Velasquez soon afterwards shared the same fate; three ships sent by the governor of Jamaica to prosecute discoveries, and plant colonies in Central America, chancing also to land at Villa Rica, their crews joined the army of Cortes; and lastly, a merchant vessel, loaded with provisions and all the necessaries of war, arrived at the Mexican coast and was purchased by Cortes-sailors, cargo, and all.

Having completely subjugated all Anahuac to the east of the Mexican valley, Cortes resolved to found a second Spanish colony in the interior of the country, which should form a half-way station between Villa Rica and the city of Mexico. The site chosen was Tepeaca, and the name given to the settlement was Segura de la Frontera. From this spot, Cortes wrote a second letter to Charles V., giving an account of the expedition from the date of the last letter down to the foundation of Segura, and announcing his intention of marching immediately to reconquer Mexico.

It was five months after the date of their expulsion from Mexico before the Spaniards were in a condition once more to march against it. Part of the necessary preparations consisted, as we have seen, in the subjugation of those parts of Anahuac which adjoined the Mexican valley on the east; but another cause of delay was the construction of thirteen brigantines at Tlascala, under the direction of Martin Lopez, a skilful shipwright, who had accompanied Cortes. These vessels were to be taken to pieces, and transported, together with the iron-work and cordage belonging to the ships which Cortes had destroyed off Villa Rica, across the mountains to the great Mexican lake. At length all was ready; and, on the 28th of December, 1520, the whole army left Tlascala on its march towards Mexico. It consisted of about six hundred Spaniards, with nine cannons and forty horses, accompanied by an immense multitude of native warriors, Tlascalans, Tepeacans, and Cholulans, amounting probably to sixteen thousand men, besides the tamanes, who were employed in transporting the brigantines. Garrisons had, of course, been left at Villa Rica and Segura.

No opposition was offered to the invaders on their march, the Mexicans fleeing at their approach; and on the 1st of January, 1521, they took possession of the city of Tezcuco. Cuitlahua, Montezuma's successor on the throne, was now dead, and his place was

occupied by his nephew, Guatemozin, yet a young man, but the most heroic and patriotic of all the Mexicans. The policy of Cortes was first to subdue all the states and cities on the margin of the five lakes, so as to leave Mexico without protection or assistance, and then to direct his whole force to the reduction of the capital. For four months, therefore, Cortes, Sandoval, Alvarado, Olid, and his other officers were employed, sometimes separately, sometimes in concert, in reconnoitering expeditions into various parts of the Mexican valley-from Chalco, on the banks of the southernmost, to Xaltocan, an island in the northernmost lake. Meantime three vessels arrived at Vera Cruz with a reinforcement of two hundred men, eighty horses, and a supply of ammunition, all of which reached the camp in safety, as the communication to the coast was open. Passing over the account of a conspiracy among his men, which the prudence and presence of mind of Cortes enabled him to quash, and of the execution of the Tlascalan chief, Xicotencatl, for deserting the Spaniards, we hasten to the concluding scene.

On the 10th of May, 1521, the siege commenced. Alvarado, with a hundred and fifty Spanish infantry, thirty cavalry, and eight thousand Tlascalans, took up his station at Tlacopan, so as to command the western causeway; Christoval de Olid, with the same