ABSTRACT
As over fifteen thousand Tlaxcalans had come to Texcoco with the timber for the launches, and had already been five days in the city without doing anything worth mentioning, and, as they had not brought supplies with them, food was getting scarce, and Chichimecatecle the Captain of the Tlaxcalans being a very valiant and proud man said to Cortés that he wished to go and render sortie service to our great Emperor by fighting against the Mexicans, both to show his strength and the goodwill he bore us, as well as to avenge the deaths of his brethren and his vassals, and he begged as a favour from Cortés that he would command and instruct him in what direction he should go and encounter our enemies, Cortés replied to him that he thought very highly of his good-will, and said that he wished to go himself, the next day, to a pueblo named Saltocan, five or six leagues distant from the City of Texcoco, where, although the houses were built in the waters of a lake, there was an entrance from the land. He had sent three times to summon the people of that pueblo to make peace and they refused to do so, but ill-treated the messengers and wounded two of them, and sent as an answer that if we came there we would find forces and a fortress as strong as Mexico, and come when we might, we would find them on the field of battle, for they had received word from their Idols that they would kill us there, and their Idols had advised them to send this reply.
