four hundred Indian porters—such men as carry fifty pounds weight on their backs and march twenty miles with it. Before this we had had to carry our own knapsacks, but now each of us had a man to bear his baggage. Donna Marina and Aguilar told us that by the custom of the country the caciques were bound, in times of peace, to furnish porters to those needing them, and from that time forward, wherever we came, we always demanded such helpers.
Next morning but one we entered the fortified town of Quiahuitztlan, built amid rocks upon a rocky cliff. It would be a difficult town to capture and we, expecting the Indians to oppose us, marched towards it in best order with cannon in front. But when they saw us climbing towards their houses, the people fled and we went to the very midst of the town without meeting a single native. After we had come to the plaza at the top of the fortress where they had their idol-houses, we found a small group dressed in good cloaks. Bearing pans of burning resin, they incensed Cortes and all the soldiers standing near, and begged us to pardon them for not going out to meet us. They had kept out of the way, they said, for fear of us and our horses, and, too, they wanted to know what sort of beings we were; but by night they would see to it that all the people had come back to town.
While Cortes was giving them green glass beads
