CHAPTER IX
Telling how kind the Tlaxcalans were, and what happened to us afterwards at Cholula; and also in what an adventure the clever Donna Marina found herself.
We had come barely within a mile of Tlaxcala when the caciques came out to meet us, accompanied by their families and many of their leading people. Members of the five tribes of Tlaxcala, flocking in from all parts of the country, wore their different dresses, which, for want of cotton, they made of hennequen, hemp from the aloe, and very neatly and prettily painted. Next the caciques came the papas, of whom there were great numbers, carrying pans of glowing embers and incensing us. Some of them had on long white cloaks, after the fashion of surplices, and hoods like those worn by our canon, and their hair was long and matted so that it could not be parted or ordered, and it was besmeared with blood which oozed from their ears, for they had cut their ears by way of sacrifice. Their finger-nails were very long, and in token of humility they lowered their heads when they approached us. These men were greatly revered for their religion.
The caciques now gathered round Cortes and
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