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We were always just going to have some frightful accident, and always just missed it. The last stage before we reached Otumba, a small dusky urchin ran across the road just before us. How Black Sam contrived to pull up I cannot tell, though, indeed, his arms were about the size of an ordinary man's thighs; but he did, and they got the child out from the horses' feet quite unhurt.

Nevertheless, they made a stout resistance. To add to the difficulties of the shrewd and valiant leader, a Spanish force was sent from the West Indies, under Narvaez, to supplant him. This force he defeated, and captured their chief. In 1520 Cortes gained over the Mexicans, at Otumba, a victory which was decisive in its consequences.

An attempt on my part to cut German sausage with an obsidian knife proved a decided failure. We had already been struck by the appearance of the two pyramids of Teotihuacán, when we passed by Otumba on our way to Mexico. The hills which skirt the plain are so near them as to diminish their apparent size; but even at a distance they are conspicuous objects.

"Never had the Spaniards incurred greater danger," says Prescott, "and had it not been for the lucky star of Cortès, not one would have survived to transmit to posterity the history of the sanguinary battle of Otumba."

Cortés hastily mounted again and led his men as speedily as possible through Tlacopan, and, as soon as he reached the open country, endeavoured to bring his disorganised battalions into something like order. The broken army, half-starved, moved slowly towards the coast. On the seventh morning the army reached the mountain range which overlooks the plains of Otumba.

The fugitives did not delay at Tacuba, and by accident they took the road to Tlascala, where they did not know what reception might await them. Ever harassed by the Mexicans, the Spaniards were again obliged to give battle upon the plains of Otumba to a number of warriors, whom some historians reckon at two hundred thousand.

It was great, for, in accordance with Cortez’s instructions, they had struck especially at the chiefs, and many of these were richly ornamented with gold and jewels. Thus ended the famous battle of Otumba, the most remarkable victory, in view of the great disparity of forces, ever won in the New World.

Passing this point and turning to the north-east, they entered the plains of Otumba, where they encountered the whole undisciplined rabble of the Aztecs, and scattered them like chaff before the wind. Soon after I had passed the head of the lake and turned southward, I entered a cultivated country between tilled grounds and little mud villages along the road.

Day after day passed as the Spaniards and their allies, the Tlascalans,—inveterate enemies of the Aztecs,—slowly moved away from that blood-stained avenue of death, now little molested by their foes, and gradually recovering from their fatigue. On the seventh morning they reached the mountain height which overlooks the plain of Otumba, a point less than thirty miles from the capital.

From this point Cortéz and his party, without their women or treasures, trudged along to the foot of the hills to Tepeac, or Guadalupe, and thence around the foot of Tezcuco to the plains of Otumba.