They had not advanced a quarter of a league, when they came in sight of the Tlascalan army. Its dense array stretched far and wide over a vast plain or meadow-ground about six miles square. Its appearance justified the report which had been given of its numbers.[139] Nothing could be more picturesque than the aspect of these Indian battalions, with the naked bodies of the common soldiers gaudily painted, the fantastic helmets of the chiefs glittering with gold and precious stones, and the glowing panoplies of feather-work which decorated their persons.[140] Innumerable spears and darts, tipped with points of transparent _itztli_ or fiery copper, sparkled bright in the morning sun, like the phosphoric gleams playing on the surface of a troubled sea, while the rear of the mighty host was dark with the shadows of banners, on which were emblazoned the armorial bearings of the great Tlascalan and Otomi chieftains.[141] Among these, the white heron on the rock, the cognizance of the house of Xicotencatl, was conspicuous, and, still more, the golden eagle with outspread wings, in the fashion of a Roman _signum_, richly ornamented with emeralds and silver-work, the great standard of the republic of Tlascala.[142]{*} {*} The accounts of the Tlascalan chronicler are confirmed by the Anonymous Conqueror and by Bernal Diaz, both eyewitnesses; though the latter frankly declares that had he not seen them with his own eyes he should never have credited the existence of orders and badges among the barbarians, like those found among the civilized nations of Europe. Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 64, et alibi.--Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.--Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 305. {*} [_I.e._, the standard of the tribe. The tribe was divided into phratries. Each phratry had its peculiar cognizance, as had also each of the clans into which the phratry was divided. It was the color of the clan, and not of its war chief, by which the warriors were distinguished.--M.] The common file wore no covering except a girdle round the loins. Their bodies were painted with the appropriate colors of the chieftain whose banner they followed. The feather-mail of the higher class of warriors exhibited, also, a similar selection of colors for the like object, in the same manner as the color of the tartan indicates the peculiar clan of the Highlander.[9]