It was on the following day that the Mexicans who still survived the slaughter and famine, evacuated the city. It was a desert--but a desert covered with dead. The men who rushed in to plunder,--plundered as if robbing graves. Between one and two hundred thousand people perished during the three months' siege, and their festering bodies tainted the air. The booty, though considerable, was far beneath the expectations of the conquerors; yet there was doubtless enough to reward amply the stout men at arms who had achieved a victory unparalleled in the annals of modern warfare. "What I am going to say is truth, and I swear, and say Amen to it!"--exclaims Bernal Diaz del Castillo, in his quaint style--"I have read of the destruction of Jerusalem, but I cannot conceive that the mortality there exceeded that of Mexico; for all the people from the distant provinces, which belonged to this empire, had concentrated themselves here, where they mostly died. The streets, and squares, and houses, and the courts of the Tlatelolco were covered with dead bodies; we could not step without treading on them; the lake and canals were filled with them, and the stench was intolerable. "When all those who had been able, quitted the city, we went to examine it, which was as I have described; and some poor creatures were crawling about in different stages of the most offensive disorders, the consequences of famine and improper food. There was no water; the ground had been torn up and the roots gnawed. The very trees were stripped of their bark; yet, notwithstanding they usually devoured their prisoners, no instance occurred when, amidst all the famine and starvation of this siege, they preyed upon each other.[8] The remnant of the population went, at the request of the conquered Guatemozin, to the neighboring villages, until the town could be purified and the dead removed." [Footnote 8: This fact, as stated by Bernal Diaz, is doubted by some other writers, and seems, unfortunately, not fully sustained by authority.] CHAPTER X. 1521. DUTY OF A HISTORIAN.--MOTIVES OF THE CONQUEST.--CHARACTER AND DEEDS OF CORTÉZ.--MATERIALS OF THE CONQUEST.--ADVENTURERS-- PRIESTS--INDIAN ALLIES.--HISTORICAL ASPECTS OF THE CONQUEST.