They found sufficient employment, however, in
repairing and cleaning their weapons, replenishing their diminished
stock of arrows, and getting everything in order for further
hostilities, should the severe lesson they had inflicted on the
enemy prove insufficient to discourage him. On the second day, as
Cortes received no overtures from the Tlascalans, he determined to
send an embassy to their camp, proposing a cessation of hostilities,
and expressing his intention to visit their capital as a friend. He
selected two of the principal chiefs taken in the late engagement as
the bearers of the message.
Meanwhile, averse to leaving his men longer in a dangerous state
of inaction, which the enemy might interpret as the result of timidity
or exhaustion, he put himself at the head of the cavalry and such
light troops as were most fit for service, and made a foray into the
neighbouring country. It was a montainous region, formed by a.
ramification of the great sierra of Tlascala, with verdant slopes
and valleys teeming with maize and plantations of maguey, while the
eminences were crowned with populous towns and villages. In one of
these, he tells us, he found three thousand dwellings. In some
places he met with a resolute resistance, and on these occasions
took ample vengeance by laying the country waste with fire and
sword. After a successful inroad he returned laden with forage and
provisions, and driving before him several hundred Indian captives.
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