aniards retired to their several camps.

Save for the fact that they afterward cleared the lake of the canoes by
the aid of the brigantines, one {197} day's fighting was like another.
The Spaniards would march into the city, slaughter until their arms
were weary. They would lose a few here and there every day. The
Tlascalans who took their part in all the fighting lost many. The end
of the day would see things _in statu quo_. There were enough of the
Indians even to sacrifice one hundred of them to one Spaniard and still
maintain the balance of power. Cortes observed that he might fight
this way until all of his army had melted away by piecemeal and have
taken nothing.

He determined upon the dreadful expedient of destroying the city as he
captured it. After coming to this decision, he summoned to his aid
large bodies of the subject tribes. Thereafter, while the Spaniards
and the Tlascalans fought, the others tore down that portion of the
city which had been taken. The buildings were absolutely razed to the
ground and nothing whatever was left of them. Canals were filled,
gardens were ruined, trees cut down and even the walls of the city torn
apart. In short, what once had been a teeming populous quarter of the
city, abounding in parks, gardens and palaces, was left a desert.
There was not enough power left in the Aztec Confederacy to rebuild the
devastated portions over night and the Spaniards daily pressed their
attack on every side with relentless rigor.

The Mexicans were slowly constricted to an ever narrowing circle. The
Spaniards seized and choked up the wells. The Mexicans were dying of
thirst. The brigantines swept the lake and prevented any
reenforcements reaching them, which cut off their supply of provisions.
They were dying of hunger. After every day's fighting Cortes offered
amnesty. To do {198} him justice, he begged that peace might be made
and the fighting stopped before the city was ruined and all its
inhabitants were killed. He was no mere murderer, and such scenes of
slaughter horrified him. He had a genuine admiration for the enemy
too. He tried his best to secure peace. His offers were repudiated
with contempt. In spite of the fact that they were starving, the
Aztecs in bravado actually threw provisions in the faces of the
advancing Spaniards. They declared to the Tlascalans that when there
was nothing left to eat they would eat them, and if there was nothing
else, they woul