Our vessels were now in the best situation for service; as those on board had ready access to the houses in the water, which were beyond our reach, whence they carried away all the best of the plunder. Their crews also discovered a great many valuable articles which the Mexicans had concealed among the tall reeds on the borders of the lake, and they intercepted a great deal that the inhabitants of the city endeavoured to carry away in their canoes; all of which was beyond our reach: Indeed the wealth which our mariners procured at this time was quite incalculable, as Guatimotzin and all his chiefs declared that far the greater part of the public treasure fell into their hands. Soon after the capture of Guatimotzin, it was ordered on his suggestion, that all the remaining inhabitants of Mexico should remove to the neighbouring towns, in order to have the the city cleared of the dead bodies, to restore its salubrity. In consequence of this order, all the causeways were full for three days and nights, of weak, sickly, and squalid wretches, men, women, and children, covered with filth, worn out by famine and disease, so that the sight was shocking in the extreme. When all were gone who had been able to get away, we went to examine the situation of the city, which was as I have already described, in a most miserable state. All the streets, courts, and houses were covered with dead bodies, among whom some miserable wretches were crawling about in the different stages of the most offensive diseases, occasioned by famine, the most unnatural food, and the pestilential smell of the corrupting carcases. Even the trees were stripped of their bark, and the ground had been everywhere dug up in search of any kind of roots it might be able to afford. Not a drop of water could be any where procured; and though it was the constant practice of all these nations to feast on the prisoners they took in war, not one instance occurred, in the midst of their extreme distress, of their having preyed on each other: and certainly there never existed in the history of this world any instance of a people who suffered so severely from hunger, thirst, and warfare. I must here observe, that in all our combats, the Mexicans seemed much more anxious to carry our soldiers away alive, that they might be sacrificed to their gods, than to kill them.