the "Bishop's Pass," where, instead of the tropic heats and sunshine to which they had become accustomed, they began to experience cold winds, with driving storms of rain, sleet, and hail, which chilled them to the marrow, and caused the death of many of the Indian porters. The aspect of the surrounding country was as dreary as that of its leaden skies. On all sides were granite bowlders rent into a thousand fantastic shapes, huge masses of lava, beds of volcanic cinders and scoriæ, bearing no traces of vegetation, while, above all, towered snow-clad pinnacles and volcanic peaks. After three days of suffering and the most fatiguing labor amid these desolate scenes they descended, and emerged through a second pass into a region of exceeding fertility and a genial climate. They were now on the great table-land of Puebla, and seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. Here they rested for several days in the Aztec city of Cocotlan, the governor of which dared not resist them, as he had received no orders from his royal master to do so.
From Cocotlan they travelled down a noble, forest-clad valley, watered by a bold mountain-torrent, and teeming with inhabitants, who collected in throngs to witness the passing of the mysterious strangers, but made no offer to molest them. At the fortress of Xalacingo they came to two roads, one leading to the sacred city of Cholula, famed for its great pyramid, its temples, and its pottery, and the other leading to Tlascala. By the advice of their native allies the conquerors decided to take the latter way, and visit the sturdy little mountain republic which had maintained a successful warfare against the arrogant Aztec for more than two centuries, and with which they hoped to form an alliance. So an embassy of Totonac caciques, bearing an exquisite Spanish sword as a present, was despatched to explain to the Tlascalan chiefs the peaceful intentions of the Spaniards, and ask for permission to pass through their territory.
The Christian army waited several days in vain for the return of these messengers, and at length, impatient of the delay, determined to push on at all hazards. Leaving the beautiful plain in which they had halted, they struck into a more rugged country, and at length paused before a structure so strange that they gazed at it in wonder. It was a battlemented stone wall nine feet high, twenty in thickness, six miles long, and terminating at either end in the precipitous sides of tall mountains too steep to be scaled. Only in the centre of this wellnigh impregnable fortress was there a narrow opening, running for forty paces between overlapping sections of the wall. This remarkable structure stood on the boundary of Tlascalan territory and, had the mountain warriors to whom it belonged chosen to defend it upon this occasion, the white men might have dashed themselves against it as fruitlessly as the waves of the sea against an iron-bound coast, until their strength was spent, without effecting a passage to the country beyond.
For days the great council of Tlascala had been the scene of stormy debate as to how the strangers applying for admission to their territory should be received. Some of its members were for making an immediate alliance with them against the Aztecs. Others claimed that these unknown adventurers had not yet declared themselves as enemies of Montezuma, nor had their vaunted powers been tested in battle against true warriors. "Therefore," said these counsellors, "let us first fight them, and if they prove able to withstand us, then will it be time to accept their alliance." This advice finally prevailed, war was decided upon, and a force was despatched to guard the great fortress. But it was too late. Cortes and his little army had already passed through its unguarded opening and gained the soil of the free republic.
After proceeding a few miles the leader, riding at the head of his horsemen perceived a small body of warriors armed with maquahuitls and shields, and clad in armor of quilted cotton, advancing rapidly. These formed the van of those who should have guarded the fortress. On seeing that the Spaniards had already passed it, they halted; and, as the latter continued to approach, they turned and fled. Cortes called upon them to halt, but as they only fled the faster he and his companions clapped spurs to their steeds and speedily overtook them. Finding escape impossible the Tlascalans faced about, but instead of surrendering or showing themselves terror-stricken at the appearance of their pursuers, they began a furious attack upon them. Handful as they were, they fought so bravely that they held their ground until the appearance, a few minutes later, of the main body to which they belonged. These numbering several thousand, and advancing on the run, at once gave battle to the little body of Spanish cavaliers. First discharging a blinding flight of arrows, they rushed, with wild cries, upon the horsemen, striving to tear their lances from their grasp and to drag the riders from their saddles. They seemed fully aware that rider and horse were distinct individuals, in which respect they differed from any of the natives yet encountered. Fortunately for the cavaliers the press about them was so great that their assailants found it almost impossible to wield their weapons, while from their superior elevation they were enabled to use their swords with telling effect. Still the Tlascalans succeeded in dragging one rider to the ground and in wounding him so severely that he soon afterward died. Two horses were also killed, and this formed by far the most serious loss yet sustained by the Spaniards.
Scores of the Tlascalans received mortal wounds, but the sight of their stricken comrades only served to animate the survivors with fresh courage and an increased fury. From their childhood the Tlascalans were taught that there was no glory so great as that to be gained by death on the field of battle, and that the warrior thus dying was at once transported to the blissful mansions of the sun. Nowhere in the New World had the Spaniards encountered such warriors as these, and it was with inexpressible thankfulness that the hard-pressed cavaliers beheld the rapid advance of their own infantry, and were able to retreat for a breathing spell behind their sheltering lines. A simultaneous fire of artillery, muskets, and crossbows so bewildered the Tlascalans, who now for the first time heard the terrifying sound, and witnessed the deadly effect, of fire-arms, that they made no further attempt to continue the battle. They did not fly but withdrew in good order, carrying their dead with them.
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