3S4 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



from the affirmation of all the hiftorians of Mexico, that 

 the army under Cortes, confifting of fix thoufand four 

 hundred men and upwards, including the allies, were all 

 lodged in the palace formerly pofTelled by king Axaja- 

 catl ; and there remained flill fufficient lodging for Mon- 

 tezuma and his attendants, befides the magazine of the 

 treafures of king Axajacatl. The fame hiflorians atteft 

 the mofl beautiful difpofition of the palace of birds ; and 

 Cortes adds, that in the apartments belonging to it two 

 princes might have been lodged with all their fuit, and 

 minutely defcribes its porticos, lodges, and gardens. He 

 fays alfo to Charles V. that he lodged in the palace of 

 Nezahualpilli, at Tezcuco, with fix hundred Spaniards, 

 and forty horfes, and that it was fo large it could eafily 

 have lodged fix hundred more. He fpeaks in a fimilar 

 manner of the palaces of Iztapalapan, and other cities, 

 praifing their ftru&ure, their beauty, and magnificence. 

 Such were the huts of the kings and chiefs of Mexico. 



M. de Paw fays, that Cortes made a palace be con- 

 tracted in hafte for his own habitation, becaufe he could 

 not find any one in all that capital fufficiently commodi- 

 ous ; but M. de Paw is in a great miftake, or rather he 

 aiTerts without truth, and condemns without reafon. It 

 is true that Cortes, during the fiege of Mexico, burnt 

 and demolifhed the greater part of that great city, as he 

 himfelf relates ; and for that end he had demanded and 

 obtained from his allies fome thoufands of country peo- 

 ple, who had no other employment than to pull down 

 and deflroy the houfes and buildings as the Spaniards 

 advanced into the city, that there might not remain be- 

 hind them any houfe from which the Mexicans could an- 

 noy them. It is therefore not very wonderful that Cor- 

 tes did not find a convenient habitation for himfelf in a 



city 



