[142] Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 6, cap. 6.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 46.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 64.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 45.--The last two authors speak of the device of “a white bird like an ostrich,” as that of the republic. They have evidently confounded it with that of the Indian general. Camargo, who has given the heraldic emblems of the four great families of Tlascala, notices the white heron as that of Xicotencatl. [143] “Portano in testa,” says the Anonymous Conqueror, “per difesa una cosa come teste di serpeti, ò di tigri, ò di leoni, ò di lupi, che ha le mascelle, et è la testa dell’ huomo messa nella testa di qsto animale come se lo volesse diuorare: sono di legno, et sopra vi é la pena, et di piastra d’oro et di pietre preciose copte, che è cosa marauigliosa da vedere.” Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 305. [144] “I saw one day an Indian make a thrust at the horse of a cavalier with whom he was fighting, which pierced its breast, and penetrated so deep that it immediately fell dead; and the same day I saw another Indian cut the neck of a horse, which fell dead at his feet.” Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 305. [145] Particular notices of the military dress and appointments of the American tribes on the plateau may be found in Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.,--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 101, et seq.,--Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 26,--Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 305, et auct. al. [146] “Que granizo de piedra de los honderos! Pues flechas todo el suelo hecho parva de varas todas de á dos gajos, que passan qualquiera arma, y las entrañas adonde no ay defensa.” Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 65. [147] So says Bernal Diaz; who at the same time, by the epithets _los muertos_, _los cuerpos_, plainly contradicts his previous boast that only one Christian fell in the fight. (Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 65.) Cortés has not the grace to acknowledge that one. [148] Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 3.--Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 52.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 6, cap. 6.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 83.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 46.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 4, cap. 32.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 65, 66.--The warm, chivalrous glow of feeling which colors the rude composition of the last chronicler makes him a better painter than his more correct and classical rivals. And, if there is somewhat too much of the self-complacent tone of the _quorum pars magna fui_ in his writing, it may be pardoned in the hero of more than a hundred battles and almost as many wounds.