sincere that the army finally took the line of march for Tlascala.
This city was eighteen miles distant from the camp at Tzompach. The country abounded with high, level valleys, which at this time were fertile and well cultivated. As the Spaniards approached the city they noted with pleasure and admiration the beautiful white houses among the trees, the well-tilled land, the luxuriant harvests and the signs of thrift everywhere. It is said that the city of Tlascala had a market where thirty thousand people bought and sold every day. It was well supplied with meat, fish, fruits and vegetables, and bath-houses and barber-shops and a well-regulated police-force were found there.
The blind old chief, Xicotencatl the elder, anxious to know what the white man was like, felt the face of Cortez and fingered his beard and his armor, finally accepting him as a friend. Soon after this the poor old man embraced the Christian faith, in token of which a great cross was erected by his orders in the market-place of Tlascala. Scenes similar to those at Cempoalla would have been enacted here but for the protestations of Father Olmedo, who succeeded—in this instance, at least—in persuading Cortez to use sermons rather than swords in converting the people.
It was in Tlascala that Cortez first heard of the longcherished hope of Feathered Serpent's return. These hunted and oppressed people were waiting for deliverance when the white men came, but, not being prepared as the Aztecs were, their sudden appearance on their frontier roused all the warlike instincts of the tribe.
The question of the white man's might once settled, the Tlascalans at once acknowledged his right to rule
