SCARCITY AT CONQUEST OF MEXICO 169 



We read that when, in 1519, the renowned 

 Hernando Cortes set out from Cuba to conquer 

 the empire of Montezuma, he took with him 

 " sixteen strong and picked horses." Bernal 

 Diaz, who was Cortes' comrade, apparently was 

 greatly devoted to horses, and in his famous 

 account of the Conquest of Mexico he describes 

 in detail each of these sixteen animals, and 

 mentions in rather a quaint way the principal 

 characteristic that each possessed. 



Seeing that Cortes' force consisted of some 

 660 trained men and about 200 Indians, the 

 sixteen horses of course in no way approached 

 the number he would have liked to take, and the 

 reason he took so few is made clear by Diaz when 

 he tells us that owing to the smallness of the ships 

 of that period and the limited amount of accommo- 

 dation that could be found on board them, even in 

 proportion to their size, the difficulty of transport 

 was very great. 



It was, indeed, owing chiefly to the difficulty 

 of transporting horses to Cuba and Hispaniola 

 from Spain that the prices demanded even for 

 horses of inconsiderable value were so exorbitant. 

 Even it seems possible that this scarcity of horses 

 directly led to a campaign that was expected to 

 last for only a few months being prolonged to 



