which
reason we rested here for a couple of hours in a large square of the
town. Our general, with several other officers, the treasurer Alderete,
(who fell ill here,) father Melgarejo, and several soldiers, including
myself, ascended to the top of the great temple of this town, from which
we beheld the neighbouring city of Mexico, with the numerous other towns
which stood in the lake. When father Melgarejo and Alderete beheld all
this splendour at once, they could scarcely find words to express their
astonishment; but when they contemplated the great city of Mexico more
minutely, and saw the numerous canoes hurrying up and down this immense
lake laden with merchandize or provisions for the city, or occupied in
fishing, they were actually terrified, and exclaimed to each other that
our arrival in New Spain could not be by the power of man alone, and
that it was through the great mercy of Providence that our lives were
still preserved. They had once before remarked, said they, that no
monarch had ever been rendered such signal services by his subjects as
we had rendered to our emperor; but now they were more convinced than
ever, and would duly inform his majesty of what they had seen.

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,--

'Mira Nero de Tarpeya[18]
A Roma como se ardia,
Gritos dan ninos y vie