incredible resource Cortes caused thirteen brigantines of war to be
constructed in Tlascala, and conveyed in pieces for twenty leagues
across the mountains to his camp, whence they were floated into the lake
through a canal, which was hollowed out by the labour of ten thousand
Indians, who worked at it without cease for two months. The bearers
of these brigantines were escorted by an army of twenty thousand
Tlascalans, and if I could have had my way that army should have been
attacked in the mountain passes. So thought Guatemoc also, but there
were few troops to spare, for the most of our force had been despatched
to threaten a city named Chalco, that, though its people were of the
Aztec blood, had not been ashamed to desert the Aztec cause. Still I
offered to lead the twenty thousand Otomies whom I commanded against the
Tlascalan convoy, and the matter was debated hotly at a council of war.
But the most of the council were against the risking of an engagement
with the Spaniards and their allies so far from the city, and thus the
opportunity went by to return no more. It was an evil fortune like
the rest, for in the end these brigantines brought about the fall of
Tenoctitlan by cutting off the supply of food, which was carried in
canoes across the lake. Alas! the bravest can do nothing against the
power of famine. Hunger is a very great man, as the Indians say.

Now the Aztecs fighting alone were face to face with their foes and the
last struggle began. First the Spaniards cut the aqueduct which supplied
the city with water from the springs at the royal house of Chapoltepec,
whither I was taken on being brought to Mexico. Henceforth till the end
of the siege, the only water that we found to drink was the brackish and
muddy fluid furnished by the lake and wells sunk in the soil. Although
it might be drunk after boiling to free it of the salt, it was
unwholesome and filthy to the taste, breeding various painful sicknesses
and fevers. It was on this day of the cutting of the aqueduct that