"A farewell was taken of the staunch Tlascalans, the invariable Mass was celebrated by Father Olmedo, and, accompanied by a large body of Tlascalan warriors, the Spaniards set out for Cholula. What befel in this beautiful and populous place--which, Bernal Diaz wrote, reminded him, form its numerous towers, of Valladolid--was of terrible and ruthless import. Cholula, with its great _teocalli_, was the Mecca of Anahuac, and was veritably a land flowing with milk and honey. Well-built houses, numerous _teocallis_, or pyramidal temples, well-dressed people with embroidered cloaks, and numbers of censer-swinging priests formed the _ensemble_ which greeted the Spaniards' eyes, whilst the intense cultivation of the ground and the fields of _maguey_, _maiz_, and other products, irrigated by canals from the mountain streams, formed the environment of this advanced community. 'Not a palm's-breadth of land that is not cultivated,' wrote Cortes in his dispatches to Castile, 'and the city, as we approached, was more beautiful than the cities of Spain.' Beautiful and gay doubtless Cholula was when the Spaniards entered; drenched with the blood of its inhabitants and devastated by fire it lay before they left it! There had been signs of treachery, even on the road thither, work of the Cholulans; but, lodged in the city, the Spaniards discovered, through the agency of the intelligent Marina, a plot to annihilate them later. Taking the Cholulans unawares as they crowded the streets with--at the moment--harmless curiosity, the Spaniards, with cannon, musket and sabre, mowed down the unfortunate and unprotected natives in one bloody massacre, aided by the ferocious Tlascalans, who fell upon the Cholulans from the rear. The appalling and unnecessary slaughter at Cholula has called down upon the heads of Cortes and the Spaniards the execration of historians. Some have endeavoured to excuse or palliate it, but it remains as one of the indelible stains of the Spanish _Conquistadores_ upon the history they were making. Having accomplished this 'punitive' act, an image of the Virgin was set up on the summit of the great pyramidal temple, and some order restored. 'They are now your Highness's faithful vassals,' wrote Cortes to the King of Spain!