Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 26, 2025
People when I say people, I mean women didn't come to Alvarado to drink the celebrated waters, or to admire the wonderful scenery. What had happened, or what might happen, was a mystery to mere civilians; but it was whispered about that possibly there might be real fighting at El Paso.
In the month of May was the great festival of the war god, which was held in his great temple; and the caziques asked permission of Alvarado to use, for the day, that portion which had been handed over to the Spaniards. He agreed to the request, on the condition that the Aztecs should celebrate no human sacrifices, and should come unarmed.
With the exception of Alvarado, Castro, and Estenega, the members of the Junta were men of middle age, and represented the talent of California, Jimeno, Gonzales, Arguëllo, Requena, Del Valle. Their dark, bearded faces, upturned to the stars, made a striking set of profiles, but the effect was marred by the silk handkerchiefs they had tied about their heads.
By the agreement made with the king, no covenant for explorations and discovery was to be made with any other person for seven years. Alvarado has heard that "the Marquis del Valle persists in begging ... this conquest, and wishes to despatch people to undertake it," and the king is asked to grant no license for this.
As they approached the battlefield, and powder-smoke mingled with the green fragrance of winter, he thought that his nostrils would burst. His ear-drums were splitting with the thunder of cannon. Suddenly Hill caught him by the arm. "Look!" he cried. "There be Alvarado and Castro over there, and Micheltorena on t' other side. Ain't they magnificent specimens? Why, what's the matter?"
"The attack was to be a general one, in which the divisions of Sandoval and Alvarado were to cooperate; but Cortes, with that knowledge of character which belonged to him, particularly explained that, though his general orders were for them to press into the market-place, they were not obliged to gain a single difficult pass which laid them open to defeat; 'for, he says, 'I knew, from the men they were, that they would advance to whatever spot I told them to gain, even if they knew that it would cost them their lives.
As Alvarado, after halting some time to restore his exhausted troops, began his march across the broad plateau, he was astonished by seeing the prints of horses' hoofs on the soil. Spaniards, then, had been there before him, and, after all his toil and suffering, others had forestalled him in the enterprise against Quito! It is necessary to say a few words in explanation of this.
Immediately after their victory in order to strike terror into the Alguazil mayor and Pedro de Alvarado, the enemy carried all the Spaniards, both living and dead, whom they had taken, to the Tlaltelulco which is the market-place, and in some of the lofty towers that are situated there they sacrificed them naked, opening their breasts and taking out their hearts to offer them to the idols.
He likewise informed him that the city of San Miguel de Piura had rebelled, and that one Pedro de Orosna was coming from the new kingdom of Grenada with a strong party to join the rebels in Peru. But to qualify this favourable news for the rebels, Giron received notice at the same time that the marshal Alvarado was coming against him from Las Charcas with a force of twelve hundred men.
General Quitman, with a brigade, was sent by land, so as to keep the horsemen from running away, while the "Potomac," Captain Aulick, and the "Scourge," Lieutenant Charles G. Hunter, were sent to appear in front of Alvarado. It was evidently intended that Captain Aulick and General Quitman would move on the place on some appointed day.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking