lants, with the utmost
effort and difficulty, crowded back the valiant defenders. No less
than one hundred and fifty thousand Mexicans perished in this awful
and atrocious siege. The Spaniards, who wished to make their loss
appear as small as possible, admit that one hundred of the Spanish
soldiers fell, and many thousands of their allies.

Nearly the whole capital was now but a mass of blackened and
smouldering ruins. Its numerous squares, streets, and courts, but
recently so beautiful in their neat order, and their embellishments
of shrubbery and flowers, were now clotted with blood and covered
with the mangled bodies of the slain. The sight was hideous even to
those accustomed to all the revolting scenes which demoniac war ever
brings in its train.

The ground was covered with the dead. Among the putrefying heaps some
wretches were seen, wounded, bleeding, and crawling about in advanced
stages of those loathsome diseases produced by famine and misery.

The air was so polluted with the masses of the dead, decaying beneath
the rays of a tropical sun, that Cortez was compelled to withdraw his
army from the city that the dead might be removed and the streets
purified. For three days and three nights the causeways were thronged
by endless processions of the natives bearing the mouldering corpses
from the city. But the Spaniards were insensible to the woes which
they had inflicted upon others in their exultation over their great
victory. They had conquered the enemy. The capital was in their hands,
and they had now but to collect the boundless treasures which they
supposed were accumulated in the halls of Montezuma. It was on
Tuesday, the 13th of August, 1521, that the conflict ceased. The
mighty empire of Mexico on that day perished, and there remained in
its stead but a colony of Spain.

On the very day of the capture Cortez searched every spot where
treasure could be found, and having collected every thing of value,
returned to his camp, "giving thanks," he says, "to our Lord for so
signal a reward and so desirable a victory as he has granted us." He
continued for three or four days searching eagerly for spoils, amid
all the scenes of horror presented by the devastated city. All the
gold and silver which were found were melted down, and one fifth was
set apart for the King of Spain, while the rest was divided among the
Spaniards according to their rank and services.

"Among the spoils obtained in the city," says C