With respect to these proceedings, Gomara has again mixed up many untruths. One time he makes Cortes mount up to the top of a mountain, and thence look over the township of Zumpanzingo, and yet it lay quite close to our camp, and he must have been blind indeed who could not see it straight before him. He also relates that the soldiers said things which I will not repeat here, though he would make one believe he had all from good authority. There is not the slightest foundation for all his assertions. There never was a commander in this world who was so strictly obeyed as Cortes, nor will it ever again fall to the lot of any man to be so. No such thought ever entered the minds of our men, excepting on the occasion which I have related above. Even the representations which were made to Cortes, mentioned in the preceding chapter, were all given in the tone of advice. Those who made them did so with a good intention, and imagined they were in the right, and though they differed with him in opinion, they paid him strict obedience. Is it, then, any wonder that a general should listen to good advice from intelligent soldiers, particularly when his troops are so awkwardly situated as ours were? I am only sorry when I reflect that all Gomara's untruths will be credited, because his style of writing is so eloquent. CHAPTER LXXII. _How ambassadors arrive in our camp from Motecusuma, and of the presents they brought with them._ After the Almighty, in his great mercy, had granted us the victory in the battles against the Tlascallans, our fame was spread to every district, and even reached the ears of the mighty Motecusuma, in the great city of Mexico. If we had been previously looked upon as teules, or a species of gods, their idea of our bravery now became the more exalted, and terror seized the whole country when we had broken the great power of the Tlascallans with such a handful of men, and compelled them to sue for peace.