Cortes was further told that the city of Mexico “was abundantly supplied with fresh water from the spring of Chapultepec, which was about two miles from the city, whence the water was partly conveyed to the houses by means of pipes, and partly in boats through the canals, when it was sold in small quantities to the inhabitants. Respecting the weapons of this nation, they included two-edged lances that were projected by means of a thong and penetrated any cuirass. The warriors were excellent marksmen with the bow and arrow, and carried pikes with blades of flint, which were very ingeniously made, and were as sharp as razors. Besides these weapons, they carried shields, and wore cotton cuirasses. There was also a great number of slingers, who were provided with round stones, long pikes, and sharp swords which were wielded with both hands. “To explain all these things, the caciques exhibited large pieces of _nequen_,[325] on which were pictured their battles and their art of warfare. When Cortes and we considered that we had gained sufficient information concerning these things, the conversation turned to subjects of greater importance. Our friends told us how and whence they came into this country, and how they settled there; how it had happened, notwithstanding their nearness to the Mexicans, that they resembled them so little, and lived in perpetual warfare with each other. A tradition was also handed down from their forefathers that in ancient times a race of men and women lived here who were immense in stature with large bones, and who were a very bad and evil-disposed people, whom they had mostly exterminated by continual war, and the few that had been spared, had in the course of time died. “In order to give us a conception of the huge frames of these people, they dragged forth a bone, or rather a thigh-bone, of one of the giants, which was very strong, and measured the length of a man of good stature. This bone was still entire from the knee to the hip-joint. I measured it with my own person, and found it to be of my own length, although I am a man of considerable height. They showed us many similar pieces of bones, but they were all worm-eaten and decayed. We, however, did not doubt for a moment, that the country was once inhabited by giants. Cortes remarked that we ought to forward these bones to his majesty in Spain at the very earliest opportunity.”