398 HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



<f refembled thofe of Europe." But Cortes and his com* 

 panions, before they went to Mexico, knew very well 

 that thofe people were not favage tribes, and that their 

 houfes were not huts ; they had heard from thofe who, 

 a year before, had made the fame voyage with Grijalva, 

 that there were beautiful fettlements there, confiding 

 of houfes of (tone and lime, with high towers to them ; 

 as Bernal Diaz attefh, who was an eye-wicnefs. That, 

 therefore, was not the occafion of their wonder, but it 

 •was the real largenefs and multitude of the cities which 

 they faw. " It is not furprifing then," adds Robertfon, 

 <£ that Cortes and his companions, little accuftomed to 

 " fuch computations, and powerfully tempted to magni- 

 " fy, in order to exalt the merit of their own difcoveries 

 " and conquefts, ftiould have been betrayed into this 

 " common error, and have raifed their defcriptions con- 

 " fiderably above truth." But Cortes was not fo weak, 

 and faw very well that the exaggeration of the number 

 of his allies, far from raifing the merit, ferved rather to 

 diminifh the glory of his conquefts. He often confeffes 

 that he was affitled in the fiege by eighty, and fometimes 

 an hundred, and two hundred thoufand men ; and as 

 thofe ingenuous confeffions difcover his fineerity, in the 

 fame manner thofe numerous armies demonftrate the 

 population of thofe countries. Befides, Dr. Robertfon 

 fuppofes, when the Spanifh writers wrote concerning the 

 number of the houfes of the Mexican cities, it was only 

 exprefled by conjecture, and the judgment which they 

 had formed by the eye ; but this was not the cafe, for 

 Cortes affirms, in his firft letter to the emperor Charles 

 V. that he ordered the houfes, which belonged to the 

 diftrict: of Tlafcala to be numbered, and found there was 

 an hundred and fifty thoufand, and in the fingle city of 

 Tlafcala more than twenty thoufand. 



DISSER- 



