In this place, Guatimotzin, the last king of the Mexicans, closed his unhappy career. It appeared that a plot had been concerted by this unfortunate monarch with many of the Mexican nobles who accompanied him, to endeavour to cut off the Spaniards; after which they proposed to make the best of their way back to Mexico, where, collecting all the forces of the natives, they hoped to be able to overpower the Spanish garrison. This conspiracy was revealed to Cortes by two Mexican nobles who had commanded under Guatimotzin during the siege, and who had been baptized by the names of Tapia and Velasquez. On receiving this intelligence, Cortes immediately took the judicial informations of these two and of several others who were concerned in the plot; from which it was learnt, that the Mexicans, observing that we marched in a careless manner, that discontent prevailed among our troops, many of whom were sick, that ten of our Spanish soldiers had died of hunger, and several had returned towards Mexico, and considering also the uncertainty of the fate of the expedition and the miseries they endured from scarcity of provisions, they had come to the resolution of falling upon us at the passage of some river or marsh, being encouraged by their numbers, which exceeded 3000 well armed men, and thinking it preferable to die at once than to encounter the perpetual miseries they now endured by accompanying us in this wilderness. Guatimotzin acknowledged that he had heard of this proposal, which he never approved of, declaring that he did not believe it would ever have been attempted, and anxiously denied that the whole of the Mexican force had concurred in the plot. His cousin, the prince of Tacuba, declared that all which had ever passed on the subject, between him and Guatimotzin, was, that they had often expressed their opinion, that it would be better to lose their lives at once like brave men, than to suffer in the manner they did by hunger and fatigue, and to witness the intolerable distresses of their friends and subjects who accompanied them. On those scanty proofs, Cortes sentenced Guatimotzin and the prince of Tacuba to be immediately hanged; and when the preparations were made for the execution, they were led forth to the place attended by the reverend fathers, who did their utmost to console them in their last moments. Before his execution, Guatimotzin addressed Cortes to the following effect: "Malintzin ! I now see that your false words and flattering promises have ended in my death. It had been better to have fallen by my own hands, than to have trusted myself to your power. You take away my life unjustly, and may God demand of you my innocent blood." The prince of Tacuba only said, that he was happy to die along with his beloved sovereign. Thus did these two great men end their lives, and, for Indians, most piously and like good Christians. I lamented them both sincerely, having seen them in their greatness. They always treated me kindly on this march, giving me Indians to procure grass for my horse, and doing me many services. To me and all of us, their sentence appeared cruel and unjust, and their deaths most undeserved.

After this, we continued our march with much circumspection, being apprehensive of a mutiny among the Mexican troops in revenge for the execution of their chiefs; but these poor creatures were so exhausted by famine, sickness, and fatigue, that they did not seem even to have bestowed a thought on the matter. At night we came to a deserted village; but on searching we found eight priests, whom we brought to Cortes. He desired them to recal the inhabitants, which they readily promised, requesting him not to injure their idols in a temple close to some buildings in which Cortes was quartered, which he agreed to, yet expostulated with them on the absurdity of worshipping compositions of clay and wood. They seemed as if it would have been easy to induce them to embrace the doctrines of our holy faith; and soon brought us twenty loads of fowls and maize. On being examined by Cortes about the bearded men with horses, they said that these people dwelt at a place called Nito, at the distance of seven suns, or days journey from their village, and offered to guide us to that place. At this time Cortes was exceedingly sad and ill-humoured, being fretted by the difficulties and misfortunes of his march, and his conscience upbraided him for the cruelty he had committed upon the unfortunate king of Mexico. He was so distracted by these reflections, that he could not sleep, and used to walk about at night, as a relief for his anxious thoughts. Going in the dark to walk in a large apartment which contained some of the Indian idols, he missed his way and fell from a height of twelve feet, by which he received a severe contused wound in his head. He endeavoured to conceal this circumstance from general knowledge, and got his wounds cured as well as he could, keeping his sufferings to himself.

After leaving this place, we came in two days to a district inhabited by a nation called the Mazotecas, where we found a newly built town, fortified by two circular enclosures of pallisades, one of which was like a barbican, having loop-holes to shoot through, and was strengthened by ditches. Another part of the town was inaccessible, being on the summit of a perpendicular rock, on the top of which the natives had collected great quantities of stones for their defence. And a third quarter of the town was defended by an impassable morass. Yet after all these defensive preparations, we were astonished to find the town entirely abandoned, though every house was full of the different kinds of provisions which the country afforded, besides which it had a magazine stocked with arms of all sorts. While we were expressing our astonishment at these circumstances, fifteen Indians came out of the morass in the most submissive manner, and told us that they had been forced to the construction of this fortress as their last resort, in an unsuccessful war with a neighbouring nation, called the Lazandones as far as I can now remember. They brought back the inhabitants, whom we treated with kindness, and from whom we received farther information, respecting, the Spanish settlement, to which two of the natives of this place undertook to shew us the way. From this place we entered upon vast open plains, in which not a tree was to be seen, and in which innumerable herds of deer were feeding, which were so tame as almost to come up to us. Our horsemen, therefore, easily took as many as they pleased, and we found that the Indians never disturbed them, considering them as a kind of divinities, and had even been commanded by their idols, or priests rather in their name, neither to kill or frighten these animals. The heat of the weather was now so excessive that Palacios Rubios, a relation of Cortes, lost his horse by pursuing the deer. We continued our march along this open campaign country, passing several villages where the destructive ravages of war were distinctly perceivable. On one occasion we met some Indians on their return from hunting, who had along with them a huge lion79 just killed, and several iguanas80, a species of small serpent very good to eat. These people shewed us the way to their town, to which we had to wade up to our middles through a lake of fresh water by which it was surrounded. This lake was quite full of fish, resembling shads, but enormously large, with prickles on their backs; and having procured some nets, we took above a thousand of them, which gave us a plentiful supply. On inquiry, five of the natives of this place engaged to guide us to the settlement of our countrymen; and they were glad to get so easily rid of us, as they were apprehensive we had come to put them all to death.