towards
Cortes and all the teules his brothers: he likewise wished to know from
us what annual tribute in gold, silver, jewels, and cotton stuffs he was
to forward to our great emperor, which would save us the trouble of
coming to Mexico: he should, indeed, be pleased to see us, but our march
there would be a terrible one, through a sterile and rocky country, and
the fatigues which we should have to undergo grieved him the more when
he considered the impossibility to remove those difficulties out of our
way.

To this Cortes answered, that he was very thankful for such kind
feeling, as also for the presents, and the offer to pay tribute, but he
must beg of the ambassadors not to leave again before we had reached the
metropolis of Tlascalla, when he would deliver to them his answers for
their monarch.

The real fact was, he did not feel well enough just then, as the day
previous he had taken a purgative of manzanilla,[27] which latter is
found on the island of Cuba, and is very wholesome when its use is
rightly understood.

[27] This name Oviedo gives to the fruit of a tree, which he calls
macanna, growing in Cuba. (Hippomane Mancinella of Linn.) From the same
fruit, according to this historian, the inhabitants prepare the deadly
poison in which they dip the points of their arrows. (p. 170.)

CHAPTER LXXIII.

_How the captain-general Xicotencatl arrives in our camp to
negotiate terms of peace; the speech he made, and what further
happened._

Cortes was still discoursing with the ambassadors of Motecusuma, and
about to dismiss them, to retire to rest, for the fit of ague was again
coming upon him, when it was announced that the general Xicotencatl was
approaching, with several caziques. They were clothed in cloaks, white
and parti-coloured, that is, one half of the cloak was white and the
other coloured, for these were their national colours in time of peace.
The number of distinguished personages who accompanied Xicotencatl
amounted altogether to about fifty. When they had arrived in Cortes'
quarters, they paid him the most profound reverence, after their
fashion, and burnt a quantity of copal before him. Cortes received them
most friendly, and desired them to take place near him; upon which
Xicotencatl said, "He came, in the name of his father, of Maxixcatzin,
and of all the caziques of the republic of Tlascalla, to beg of us to
admit them to our friendship: he, at the same time, in their nam