Note 869 — Chapter XXVII · RETREAT TO TLASCALA. July, 1520.

Herrera conforms to Cortés and Gomara in admitting a stay of two nights at one place, but makes this Tecopatlan, called ‘duck town,’ from its many fowl. This is evidently Tepotzotlan. But it was not near the lake like Citlaltepec, and ‘duck town’ applies rather to a lake town, in this region, at least. Cortés also writes, in Cartas, 137, ‘fuimos aquel dia por cerca de unas lagunas hasta que llegamos á una poblacion,’ and this does not apply well to Tepotzotlan, which lies a goodly distance from the lakes, requiring certainly no march along ‘some’ lakes to reach it. Hence the Citlaltepec of Sahagun must be meant. This author, however, supposes the Spaniards to stay one night at each place. Hist. Conq., 36 (ed. 1840), 129. Ixtlilxochitl calls the place after Tepotzotlan, Aychqualco. Hist. Chich., 302. At Tepotzotlan, says Vetancurt, some of the people remained to receive the Spaniards—this is in accordance with one of Sahagun’s versions—and here remained to hide the son of Montezuma, whom he supposes to have escaped with the troops. Teatro Mex., pt. iii. 144. According to Chimalpain’s interpretation the Spaniards stay the two nights at Quauhtitlan, and thence proceed by way of Ecatepec, now San Cristóbal, skirting the northern shore of Tezcuco Lake, and on to Otumba. Hist. Conq., i. 304-5. This route certainly appears the most direct, but there is no authority for it. The sentence from Cortés might no doubt be adopted equally well for this road; but Sahagun, Ixtlilxochitl, and Herrera name towns which lie east and north of the Zumpango Lake, and during the rainy season now prevailing the passages between the lakes were rather swampy. Tezcuco was beside too close for the fleeing army. Alaman accepts the route south of Zumpango, Disert., i. 122, against which nearly all the above reasons apply.