Xicotencatl in a town subject to Tezcuco, hung him up by private orders from Cortes, and some reported that this was done with the approbation of the elder Xicotencatl, father to the Tlascalan general.  This affair detained us a whole day, and on the next the two divisions of Alvarado and De Oli marched by the same route, halting for the night at Aculma or Alcolman, a town belonging to the state of Tezcuco, where a very ruinous quarrel was near taking place between our two commanders and their divisions.  De Oli had sent some persons before to take quarters for his troops, and had appropriated every house in the place for his men, marking them by setting up green boughs on the terraces; so that when Alvarado arrived with his division, we had not a single house for us to lodge in.  Our soldiers were much irritated at this circumstance, and stood immediately to their arms to fight with those of De Oli, and the two commanders even challenged each other; but several of the more prudent of the officers on both sides interposed, and a reconciliation was effected, yet Alvarado and De Oli were never afterwards good friends.  An express was sent off immediately to apprize Cortes of this misunderstanding, who wrote to all the people of any influence in the two divisions, greatly condemning the circumstances of this disagreement, which might have produced fatal consequences to our whole army, and earnestly recommended a reconcilement.  We continued our march for two days more, by several Mexican cities, which were abandoned by their inhabitants; and passing through Coatitlan, Tenajoccan and Itzcapuzalco, where our allies waited for us, we proceeded for Tacuba, otherwise called Tlacopan.

[1] According to Clavigero, II. 135, the Spanish force at this time
    amounted to forty cavalry, divided into four troops, and 550 infantry,
    in nine companies:  But he swells the auxiliary force of the Tlascalans
    to 110,000 men.—­E.

[2] In the very imperfect maps of Diaz and Clavigero, Tezcuco is placed
    near the mouth of a rivulet which discharges itself into the lake of
    Mexico:  In the former, the buildings are represented as extending two
    miles and a half along the rivulet, and coming close to the edge of
    the lake; but the map of Clavigero has no scale.  In the map given by
    Humboldt, Tezcuco is placed on a rising ground, near two miles from
    the edge of the lake.  But the lake has since the time of Cortes been
    much diminished in extent by a grand drain, insomuch that Mexico,
    formerly insulated, is now a mile and a half from the lake.—­E.

[3] On this occasion Diaz mentions the inhabitants of Chalco, Tlalmalanco,
    Mecameca, and Chimaloacan, as the allies of the Spaniards; but these
    states do not appear to have submitted to the Spaniards till
    afterwards.  Cortes employed the interval, from his arrival at Tezcuco
    in the end of December 1520, to the investment of Mexico, at the end
    of May 1521, five months, in detaching a great number of the native
    states from their dependence upon Mexico.—­E.