I was engaged with the enemy all fear left me.  Let those valiant cavaliers who have been in desperate battles and mortal dangers decide on the cause of my fears, for I declare I never knew what fear was till I saw the savage immolation of my seventy-two companions:  In my own opinion it was from excessive courage, as I was fully aware of the extent of danger which I was voluntarily about to encounter.  I have related many engagements in this history, at which I was not present; for even if my body had been of iron I could not have been present at all, and I was much oftener wounded than whole.

[1] According to Clavigero, II. 162, the 30th of May 1521, on which day
    Cortes dated the commencement of this memorable siege.—­E.

[2] Corpus Christi fell that year, according to Clavigero, on the 30th May,
    so that the occupation of Iztapalapa, by which the investment of
    Mexico was completed, was on the 3d of June.

[3] The whole of this topographical account of Mexico and its approaches
    is added by the editor, and has been placed in the text, distinguished
    by inverted commas, as too long for a note.  A plan is added,
    constructed from a comparison of the maps in Diaz and Clavigero, both
    evidently drawn without any actual survey, and corrected by means of
    the excellent map of the vale of Mexico given by Humboldt.  By means of
    a great drain, made considerably posterior to the conquest, the lake
    has been greatly diminished in magnitude, insomuch that the city is
    now above three miles from the lake; so that the accurate map of
    Humboldt does not now serve for the ancient topography of Mexico and
    its near environs.—­E.

[4] It is hard to guess which way the brigantines could get there, as by
    the maps both of Diaz and Clavigero, the great double causeway of
    Xoloc or Iztapalapa, ought to have completely prevented his
    penetrating to that part of the lake.  It was probably Xoloc against
    which this attack was made, and Diaz may have mistaken the name after
    an interval of fifty-one years; for so long intervened between the
    siege of Mexico in 1521, and 1572, when he informs us his history was
    concluded.—­E.

[5] Perhaps along the mound or causeway of Mexicaltzinco; by which he
    approached towards the great causeway of Xoloc, and the position of De
    Oli at Cojohuacan.—­E.

[6] Though not mentioned by Diaz, this necessarily implies that one of the
    bridges of each causeway must have been taken possession of by the
    Spaniards, to allow the brigantines to get through into those parts of
    the lake which were intersected by the causeways.—­E.

[7] Though not especially mentioned by Diaz, it appears that Cortes had
    taken the immediate command of the detachment of De Oli, at Cojohuacan,
    which formed the southern attack.—­E.