Note 852 — Chapter XXVII · RETREAT TO TLASCALA. July, 1520.

‘Una torre y aposento fuerte.’ Cortés, Cartas, 136. ‘Vnas caserias q̄ en vn cerro estauan, y alli jũto a vn Cu, e adoratorio, y como fortaleza.’ Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 107. ‘A este templo llamaron de la Vitoria, y despues nuestra Señora de los remedios.’ Herrera, dec. ii. lib. x. cap. xii. Sahagun calls the rise Acueco, and places upon it the Otomí village of Otoncapulco. Hist. Conq. (ed. 1840), 122. Vetancurt follows, Teatro Mex., pt. iii. 143, while Camargo calls it Tzacuyocan. The variations in Sahagun’s editions lead Torquemada to say that the Spaniards moved the same day from Otoncalpulco pueblo to Acueco, an Otomí village, i. 504-5. This, Brasseur de Bourbourg follows. The Spaniards may have passed through it on departing, but would hardly move from a stronghold to a probably open village while surrounded by enemies. If food was the object, the able-bodied soldiers would have made a sally for it. It appears that the army camped for the night on the hill now occupied by the Remedios shrine, and in the fortress-like temple, to which a small village was attached. Alzate, however, who took pains to inquire into the subject, found that the natives applied the name Otoncapulco, not to the Remedios hill, but to the mountain, three fourths of a league off. On this mountain he found the ruins of a strong building, and none on the hill, whence he assumes that the camp was not made on the site of the shrine, but on the mountain. Gacetas de Lit., ii. 457-9. Bustamante accepts this view, but Archbishop Lorenzana, whose testimony in the matter must be reliable, says: ‘Se conservan aun algunos vestigios de la antigua Fortaleza, y esta se ha convertido dichosamente en el célebre Santuario de N. Sra. de los Remedios.’ Cortés, Hist. N. España, p. xiii. He also intimates that the Otoncapulco name is misapplied. Hence it may be assumed that the common application of Otoncapulco to this hill is due to a misinterpretation of Sahagun’s versions, which have been greatly tampered with, for that matter, and that the ruins mentioned by Lorenzana had disappeared by the time Alzate examined the place.