[1] We are not writing the history of the conquest of Mexico, yet may be
    allowed to say that Cortes committed a gross military error, in
    entering Mexico without establishing a strong communication of posts
    between that insulated city and the land, along one of the causeways;
    which he might easily have done along the shortest causeway of Tacuba
    or Tlacopan, or by the aqueduct of Chapoltepec.—­E.

[2] It is to be noticed that the lake in which the city of Mexico was
    built contained water so salt as to be unfit for drinking.—­E.

[3] This prince, whom Diaz names Coadlavaca, was brother to Montezuma,
    prince of Iztapalapan, and Tlachcocoatl, or grand general of the
    Mexican army.—­E.

[4] The expression in the text, of having nearly reached the firm land, is
    rather obscure, and may possibly mean that they had nearly forced
    their way along one of the causeways leading from the insular city to
    the continental shore of the lake.—­E.

[5] Tlaltelulco was the name of that division of the city of Mexico
    through which the Spaniards marched in their way towards the causeway
    of Tacuba, and was probably used to summon the inhabitants of that
    quarter to the attack.—­E.

[6] Clavigero, II. 116, says that the miserable remnant of the Spaniards
    assembled in Popotla, a village near Tacuba or Tlacopan.  Diaz is often
    negligent of dates, but we learn in a subsequent passage, that this
    disastrous retreat from Mexico was on the 1st of July 1520.—­E.

[7] This place is about nine miles W.N.W. from Mexico, and only about a
    mile and a half from Tacuba.  Its Mexican name, according to Clavigero,
    was Otoncalpolco.  It is almost in an opposite direction from the road
    to Tlascala, but was probably chosen on purpose to avoid the populous
    hostile vale of Mexico, and to get as soon as possible among the hills,
    and among some of the conquered tribes who bore the Mexican yoke with
    impatience.  Clavigero says that the Spaniards procured at this place
    some refreshments from a tribe of Otomies, who inhabited two
    neighbouring hamlets.—­E.

[8] The distance from where they now were to Tlascala was between 80 and
    90 miles in a straight line; but as they chose a very circuitous route,
    by the west and north of the lakes in the vale of Mexico, before
    turning south-eastwards to Tlascala, their march must have much
    exceeded that distance.—­E.

[9] Named Quauhtitlan by Clavigero, and Guautitlan, Huauhtitlan or
    Teutitlan, in Humboldts map of the Vale of Mexico.—­E.