This towne standeth in a playne grounde of two leagues compasse, which is replenished with so many houses as doth séeme to touche one an other, in that way that our army passed--and the towne it selfe doth contayne fiue thousande householdes, standing on a hill, and on the one side thereof is the Lordes house with a strong forte, being the beste yet séene in those parties, walled with good stone with barbucan and déepe ditche. There _Cortes_ rested himselfe thrée dayes, abiding the foure messengers whiche he sent from _Zacloton_, to knowe the answere that should be brought. The first encounter that Cortez had _with the men of Tlaxcallan_. [Sidenote: A straunge vvall.] _Cortes_ seyng the long tarying of the messengers he departed from _Zaclotan_ without any intelligence from _Tlaxcallan_. Our cäp had not marched much after their departure from that place, but they came to a great circuite of stone made without lyme or morter, being of a fadom and a half high, and twentie foote brode with loupe holes, to shoote at: that wall crossed ouer all the valley from one mountayne to another, and but one onely entraunce or gate, in the whiche the one wall doubled against the other, and the way there was fourtie paces brode, in such sort, that it was an euill and perilous passage, if any had bene there to defend it. _Cortes_ demaunded the cause of that circuite, and who had buylte it, _Iztacmixtlitan_ that wente to beare him company, tolde him that it was but a deuision from their countrey and _Tlaxcallan_, and that their antecessors had made the same to disturbe the entrance of the _Tlaxcaltecas_ in time of warre, who came to robbe and murther them, bycause of the friendship betwixte them and _Mutezuma_, whose vassals they were. That strange and costly wall, séemed a thing of greate maiestie to our Spanyardes, and more superfluous than profitable, yet they suspected that the _Tlaxcaltecas_ were valiant warriers, who had suche defense made agaynst them. And as _Cortes_ and his army stoode beholding thys worke, _Iztacmixtlitan_ thought he had bin afrayde to procéede forward, and prayed him (for so much as he was his Lordes friend) not to passe that way, nor yet through the Countrey of _Tlaxcallan_, for so muche as he wente to visite his maister, for (quoth he) if they knowe you to be my Lordes friende, they will séeke youre displeasure, as they haue done to others, and I will prouide you of guides to leade you continually through the dominion of _Mutezuma_, where you shall be well receyued and prouided, vntil you come to _Mexico_.