It is unnecessary here to follow farther the movements of the conquerors (_conquistadores_) of New Spain. The beautiful and famous metropolis of Mexico, twenty-two months after Cortes and his followers had entered it, was in ruins, filled with the innumerable dead bodies of its heroic defenders. The siege of the city lasted ninety-three days, ending the 13th of August, 1521. When the terrible drama ended, Cortes permitted those of its inhabitants who had not been killed, starved, or stricken with disease, to leave the charnel city. “The causeways,” says Diaz, “were crowded for three days and nights with men, women, and children, on their way to the main-land. These poor beings were much emaciated, and had a deathlike appearance.... The houses were found filled with dead bodies.... The soil in the city looked as if it had been ploughed, for the famished inhabitants had dug every root out of the ground, and had even peeled the bark from the trees to appease their hunger. We did not find any fresh water in the city, for that in all the wells was salty. During the horrible famine the Mexicans had not eaten the flesh of their countrymen, although they greedily devoured that of the Tlascallans and Spaniards. Certainly no people in this world ever suffered so much from hunger, thirst, and the horrors of war, as the inhabitants of this great city.” As the emperor’s share of the booty, Cortes sent to Spain two vessels carrying eighty-eight thousand _pesos_ of gold in bars, and the wardrobe of Montezuma. “The latter,” Diaz observes, “was a valuable present, and well worthy of our great emperor’s acceptance, for it embraced jewels of the greatest value, pearls of the size of hazel-nuts, and various precious stones, the number of which my memory will not permit me to designate. At the same time were sent the bones of the giants which we found in the temple of Cojohuacan, which were similar to those given to us by the Tlascallans that we had previously sent to Spain.”[332] CHAPTER VIII. 1518-1524.