When the news reached Zempoalla, the army were excited almost to open mutiny. Cortés, however, was perfectly cool. Addressing the army collectively, he assured them that the ships were not fit for service, as had been shown by due inspection. "There is one important advantage gained to the army, viz., the addition of a hundred able-bodied recruits who were necessary to man the lost ships. Besides all that, of what use could ships be to us in the present expedition? As for me, I will remain here even without a comrade. As for those who shrink from the dangers of our glorious enterprise, let them go back, in God's name! Let them go home, since there is still one vessel left; let them go on board and return to Cuba. They can tell how they deserted their commander and their comrades, and patiently wait till they see us return loaded with the spoils of the Aztecs."
Persuasion is the end of true oratory. The reply of the army to Cortés was the unanimous shout "To Mexico! To Mexico!"
After beginning the gradual ascent in their march toward the table-land of Mexico, the first place noted by the invaders was Jalapa, a town which still retains its Aztec name, known to all the world by the well-known drug grown there. It is a favorite resort of the wealthier residents in Vera Cruz, and that too tropical plain which Cortés had just left. The mighty mountain Orizaba, one of the guardians of the Mexican Valley, is now full in sight, towering in solitary grandeur with its robe of snow.
At last they reached a town so populous that there were thirteen Aztec temples with the usual sacrificial stone for human victims before each idol. In the suburbs the Spanish were shocked by a gathering of human skulls, many thousand in number. This appalling reminder of the unspeakable sacrifices soon became a familiar sight as they marched through that country.
Cortés asked the cazique if he were subject to Montezuma. "Who is there," replied the local prince, "that is not tributary to that Emperor?" "I am not," said the stranger general. Cortés assured him that the monarch whom the Spaniards served had princes as vassals, who were more powerful than the Aztec ruler. The cazique said:
Montezuma could muster thirty great vassals, each master of 100,000 men. His revenues were incalculable, since every subject, however poor, paid something.... More than 20,000 victims, the fruit of his wars, were annually sacrificed on the altars of his gods! His capital stood on a lake, in the center of a spacious valley.... The approach to the city was by means of causeways several miles long; and when the connecting bridges were raised all communication with the country was cut off.
The Indians showed the greatest curiosity respecting the dresses, weapons, horses, and dogs of their strange visitors. The country all around was then well wooded and full of villages and towns, which disappeared after the conquest. Humboldt remarked, when he traveled there, that the whole district had, "at the time of the arrival of the Spanish, been more inhabited and better cultivated, and that in proportion as they got higher up near the table-land, they found the villages more frequent, the fields more subdivided, and the people more law-abiding."
Before entering upon the table-land, Cortés resolved to visit the republic of Tlascala, which was noted for having retained its independence in spite of the Aztecs. After sending an embassy, consisting of the four chief Zempoallas, who had accompanied the army, he set out toward Tlascala, lingering as they proceeded, so that his ambassadors should have time to return. While wondering at the delay, they suddenly reached a remarkable fortification which marked the limits of the republic, and acted as a barrier against the Mexican invasions. Prescott thus describes it:
A stone wall nine feet in height and twenty in thickness, with a parapet a foot and a half broad raised on the summit for the protection of those who defended it. It had only one opening in the center, made by two semicircular lines of wall overlapping each other for the space of forty paces, and affording a passageway between, ten paces wide, so contrived, therefore, as to be perfectly commanded by the inner wall. This fortification, which extended more than two leagues, rested at either end on the bold natural buttresses formed by the sierra. The work was built of immense blocks of stone nicely laid together without cement, and the remains still existing, among which are rocks of the whole breadth of the rampart, fully attest its solidity and size.
Who were the people of this stout-hearted republic? The Tlascalans were a kindred tribe to the Aztecs, and after coming to the Mexican Valley, toward the close of the twelfth century, had settled for many years on the western shore of Lake Tezcuco. Afterward they migrated to that district of fruitful valleys where Cortés found them; Tlascala, meaning "land of bread." They then, as a nation, consisted of four separate states, considerably civilized, and always able to protect their confederacy against foreign invasion. Their arts, religion, and architecture were the same as those of the Aztecs and Tezcucans.