After we had thus formed an alliance with the thirty townships of the Totonaque mountains, which had revolted from Motecusuma and submitted of their own free will to the sceptre of our sovereign, we immediately hastened to profit by the circumstance and found Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz. The spot we made choice of lay at about two miles distance from the fortress of Quiahuitzlan, in the valley beneath. We first of all marked out the ground for the church, the market, the magazines and other public buildings belonging to a town. We then set off part of the ground to form a fortress, and nothing could exceed the assiduity with which the walls of the foundation were carried up, the woodwork completed, the turrets and loopholes constructed with the parapets. Cortes himself put the first hand to it, carried a basket filled with stones and earth on his shoulders, and worked at the foundations. The caziques and all of us followed his example, and every part of the work was carried on with like vigour. Some were mixing mortar, fetching water, burning chalk, baking bricks and tiles, others prepared the food and cut wood. The smiths hammered hard at the nails and other ironwork. In short, from the highest to the lowest showed the greatest activity, while the Indians lent us such efficacious aid, that in a short time the church and other buildings were quite finished, and the fortress nearly so. In the meantime Motecusuma received the intelligence at Mexico, that his tax-gatherers had been imprisoned by our allies; that the latter had renounced obedience to him, and that all the Totonaque townships had revolted. He was excessively enraged against Cortes and the whole of us, and ordered one of his powerful chiefs to make war upon the tribes which had revolted, and extirpate them to a man. Against us he would march in person at the head of an immense army, commanded by many generals. While preparations for this purpose were being made, the two prisoners whom Cortes had liberated arrived in Mexico. When Motecusuma learnt that Cortes had restored them to liberty, and himself sent them to Mexico with the commission to offer his services to their monarch, the Almighty softened down the hardness of his heart, and he resolved to make inquiries as to what our intentions were. To this end he despatched two of his young nephews, accompanied by four aged men, who were caziques of distinction, to our quarters, sending with them a present consisting in gold and cotton stuffs. These men were commissioned to thank Cortes for the liberation of his two tax-gatherers, but at the same time to make heavy complaints respecting these tribes who had presumed to revolt from him, merely because we had taken them under our protection, and now refused all further obedience and to pay tribute. At present he was merely withheld from putting his threat into execution of exterminating them totally, out of consideration for us, since we inhabited their