1898-99.] DECIPHERING HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTIONS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 175 
into the hands of the Zapotecs. This was not all; in their nightly 
excursions, the warriors of Cocyoéza, darting from their rocks by paths 
known only to them, fell without warning on the enemy’s works, like 
tigers on their prey. They were not content with killing the Mexicans, 
but, in the barbarous pleasure they experienced in their distress, they 
took them captive to bring them alive into their fortress, where they 
made them suffer a thousand tortures before putting them to death ; 
afterwards they salted their flesh to preserve it, or ate it in cannibal 
feasts, and made use oftheir bones to build an edifice commemorative of 
their victory, in reprisal for the sacrifice of so many human victims led 
by Ahuitzotl to the temple of Huitzilopochtli. One of the chief officers 
of the army, having been made prisoner, was purposely led, by order of 
the king, through these ghastly remains: he was allowed to survey at 
his ease the formidable ramparts erected by the Zapotecs, as well as the 
vast resources they had amassed ; after which he was allowed freely to 
return to his own people, to whom he described with terror the things he 
had seen. 
“The news was carried to Mexico. Anahuac was in consternation. 
Three times the heads of the empire sent more numerous troops to the 
relief of the army shut up before Tehuantepec, but they were unable to 
penetrate the defile, and if some succeeded in forcing a passage, it was 
only to be slowly wasted away with their brethren, after being decimated 
at the feet of the Zapotec fortresses on their entrance to the plain. This 
terrible situation lasted seven whole months, during which the imperial 
armies succeeded in exhausting themselves. Then Ahuitzotl, sensible 
of the uselessness of his efforts, and professing a hypocritical admiration 
of the constancy and courage of Cocyoéza, sent to him to make pro- 
posals of peace. Before concluding any arrangement, the Zapotec 
monarch, profiting by the state of humiliation to which the Mexicans 
were reduced, descended from Guiengola at the head of a numerous 
body of Chiapanec auxiliaries, and went to make the conquest of 
Soconusco, which was added a second time to his kingdom. 
“The ambassadors of Ahuitzotl, having arrived about this time, con- 
cluded the treaty in their master’s name. It is not known what the 
details were. It appears, however, from the evidence of later events, 
that the kingdom of Tehuantepec remained a definite acquisition of the 
kings of Zapotecapan: the province of Soconusco was returned to the 
Mexican empire, which stipulated for its merchants free passage through 
Zapotec territory, guaranteeing their non-interference in any of the 
affairs of the kingdom; it kept also the citadel of Huaxyacac, too 
important from a political point of view to be parted with. -The only 
