forbidding further butchery. When the amnesty was proclaimed, however, numbers appeared from hiding-places, even from beneath the heaps of slain, while many who had pretended death, to escape the sword, arose and fled.
The pillage was continued for some time longer,[1] and as the Tlascaltecs cared chiefly for fabrics, feathers, and provisions, particularly salt, the Spaniards were allowed to secure all the gold and trinkets they could, though these were far less in amount than had been expected.[2] When the real work was over, Xicotencatl appeared with twenty thousand men and tendered his services; but Cortés could offer him only a share in the booty for his attention, and with this he returned to Tlascala to celebrate the downfall of the hated and boastful neighbor.[3]
The prayers of the chiefs who had been spared, supported by the neighboring caciques, and even by the Tlascalan lords, prevailed on Cortés to stop the pillage after the second day, and to issue a pardon, although not till everything of value had been secured. Some of the chiefs were thereupon sent forth to recall the fugitive inhabitants, and with such good effect that within a few days the city was again peopled. The débris and gore being removed, the streets speedily resumed their accustomed appearance, and the shops and markets were busy as before, though blackened ruins and desolated homes long remained a testimony of the fearful blow.[4] Im-
- ↑ For two days, says Tapia, id., and Bernal Diaz intimates that it ended with the second day. Hist. Verdad., 60.
- ↑ 'Tomaron los Castellanos el oro, y pluma, aūque se hallò poco.' Herrera, dec. ii. lib. vii. cap. ii. 'Ovo mucho despojo de oro é plata,' says Oviedo, iii. 499, probably because he knew Cholula to be rich; but a great deal of private treasure at least must have been taken out of the city when the women were sent away. The Tlascaltecs carried off 20,000 captives, he adds.
- ↑ Herrera, ubi sup. Oviedo allows a reinforcement of 40,000 Tlascaltecs to join in the massacre and pillage, iii. 498, and Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 60, says the late comers joined in the pillage on the second day. The Tlascaltecs brought the Spaniards food, of which they had fallen short. Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., 295.
- ↑ A very similar massacre and raid was perpetrated by the Chichimec-Toltecs at the close of the thirteenth century. Native Races, v. 484-7.
