recently been put there by order of the Mexican council; the other path was that which had been marked for the army as the best and safest for the horses. It is not strange that fresh treachery was suspected here. Finding that the road which the Indians had blocked up was the most direct, Cortez ordered his men to clear it of stones and of timber. They made short work of this, the Tlascalans especially laboring with a will to open a path toward the citadel of their lifelong enemies. The courage of the Totonacs, however, gave out at the last moment; so, thanking them for their fidelity in the time of his greatest need, Cortez dismissed them with liberal rewards out of the abundance with which Montezuma had provided him.
The army now pressed on and up the highest of the great mountain-ranges on which are piled the central table-lands of Mexico. Cortez writes of it: "Eight leagues from the city of Cholula are two very lofty and remarkable mountains.[1] In the latter part of August their summits are covered with snow, and from the higher a volume of smoke arises equal in bulk to a spacious house. It ascends above the mountain to the clouds as straight as an arrow, and with such force that, although a very strong wind is always blowing on the mountain, it does not turn the smoke from its course. As I wished to ascertain the cause of this phenomenon, as it appeared to me, I despatched ten of my companions, with several natives of the country for guides, charging them to ascend the mountain and find out the cause of that smoke. They went and struggled with all their might to reach the summit, but were unable, on account of the great quantity of snow which lay on the mountains, the whirl-
- ↑ Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl, both snow-clad all the year.
