"But still," as Cortes told himself in the secresy of his own heart, and as some of the more thoughtful of his men also told themselves as they now looked down upon it for the first time, "wide as that causeway was, some thousands of determined enemies upon it in their rear, the thousands of the great city's inhabitants driving them in front, that long causeway might well become the death-blow of them and their exalted hopes." There was a few minutes' pause. Some would not unwillingly have heard the word of command for a retreat, while there was yet time. But that word did not come. As Cabrera had once said so Cortes always thought: "We must all die, and we can die but once." The word of command was given to advance, and in no long time after, the army had reached the city of Iztapalapan, where it was finally determined to call a halt for the night, and make a first appearance before the Emperor at a more seasonable hour on the following day. With the first streak of dawn of the 8th November, 1519, the Spanish general and his troops were astir. A lovely morning, the brilliant beams of the sun gradually fading into dimness the innumerable sacred fires of the assemblages of temples. The whole city was visible to them. The wide-spreading palace of the Emperor, like a second palace of the Cæsars, comprising many homes, gardens of every description for plants and animals, and aviaries of the most gorgeous description, within the one circle. Then the great redstone mansions of the nobles, their roofs blooming like so many exquisite parterres of flowers. The neat dwellings of the poorer classes, of stone and unbaked bricks, here and there rudely adorned with crossbar wooden rafters. Everywhere gardens, streets perfectly kept and perfectly clean, and terraces.