We are not writing the history of the conquest
of Mexico, yet may be
allowed to say that Cortes committed a gross military error, in
entering Mexico without establishing a strong communication of posts
between that insulated city and the land, along one of the causeways;
which he might easily have done along the shortest causeway of Tacuba
or Tlacopan, or by the aqueduct of Chapoltepec.—E.
 It is to be noticed that the lake in which the
city of Mexico was
built contained water so salt as to be unfit for drinking.—E.
 This prince, whom Diaz names Coadlavaca, was brother
prince of Iztapalapan, and Tlachcocoatl, or grand general of the
 The expression in the text, of having nearly reached
the firm land, is
rather obscure, and may possibly mean that they had nearly forced
their way along one of the causeways leading from the insular city to
the continental shore of the lake.—E.
 Tlaltelulco was the name of that division of the
city of Mexico
through which the Spaniards marched in their way towards the causeway
of Tacuba, and was probably used to summon the inhabitants of that
quarter to the attack.—E.
 Clavigero, II. 116, says that the miserable remnant
of the Spaniards
assembled in Popotla, a village near Tacuba or Tlacopan. Diaz is often
negligent of dates, but we learn in a subsequent passage, that this
disastrous retreat from Mexico was on the 1st of July 1520.—E.
 This place is about nine miles W.N.W. from Mexico,
and only about a
mile and a half from Tacuba. Its Mexican name, according to Clavigero,
was Otoncalpolco. It is almost in an opposite direction from the road
to Tlascala, but was probably chosen on purpose to avoid the populous
hostile vale of Mexico, and to get as soon as possible among the hills,
and among some of the conquered tribes who bore the Mexican yoke with
impatience. Clavigero says that the Spaniards procured at this place
some refreshments from a tribe of Otomies, who inhabited two
 The distance from where they now were to Tlascala
was between 80 and
90 miles in a straight line; but as they chose a very circuitous route,
by the west and north of the lakes in the vale of Mexico, before
turning south-eastwards to Tlascala, their march must have much
exceeded that distance.—E.
 Named Quauhtitlan by Clavigero, and Guautitlan,
Teutitlan, in Humboldts map of the Vale of Mexico.—E.