[181] To avoid the perplexity of selection, it was common for the missionary to give the same names to all the Indians baptized on the same day. Thus, one day was set apart for the Johns, another for the Peters, and so on; an ingenious arrangement, much more for the convenience of the clergy than of the converts. See Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS. [182] Ibid., MS.--Bernal Diaz. Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 74, 77.--According to Camargo, the Tlascalans gave the Spanish commander three hundred damsels to wait on Marina; and the kind treatment and instruction they received led some of the chiefs to surrender their own daughters, “con propósito de que _si acaso_ algunas se empreñasen quedase entre ellos generacion de hombres tan valientes y temidos.” [183] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 80.--Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 60.--Martyr, De Orbe Novo, dec. 5, cap. 2.--Cortés notices only one Aztec mission, while Diaz speaks of three. The former, from brevity, falls so much short of the whole truth, and the latter, from forgetfulness perhaps, goes so much beyond it, that it is not always easy to decide between them. Diaz did not compile his narrative till some fifty years after the Conquest; a lapse of time which may excuse many errors, but must considerably impair our confidence in the minute accuracy of his details. A more intimate acquaintance with his chronicle does not strengthen this confidence. [184] _Ante_, p. 306. [185] “Si no viniessen, iria sobre ellos, y los destruíria, y procederia contra ellos como contra personas rebeldes; diciéndoles, como todas estas Partes, y otras muy mayores Tierras, y Señoríos eran de Vuestra Alteza.” (Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 63.) “Rebellion” was a very convenient term, fastened in like manner by the countrymen of Cortés on the Moors for defending the possessions which they had held for eight centuries in the Peninsula. It justified very rigorous reprisals. (See the History of Ferdinand and Isabella, Part I., chap. 13, et alibi.) [186] Rel. Seg. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, pp. 62, 63.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 4.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 84.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 58.--Martyr, De Orbe Novo, dec. 5, cap. 2.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 6, cap. 18.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, MS., lib. 12, cap. 11. [187] Rel. Seg., ap. Lorenzana, p. 67.--According to Las Casas, the place contained 30,000 _vecinos_, or about 150,000 inhabitants. (Brevissima Relatione della Distruttione dell’ Indie Occidentale (Venetia, 1643)). This latter, being the smaller estimate, is _a priori_ the more credible; especially--a rare occurrence--when in the pages of the good Bishop of Chiapa. [188] Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. iii. p. 159.