He moved slowly towards the great teocalli, his fifty thousand Tlascalan allies following him, throwing down every house, and filling the canals with the ruins.

When the conquest was finished, but one district of the city was left standing, and in it were crowded a quarter of the population, miserable famished wretches, who had surrendered when their king was taken.

All that was left besides was a patch of swampy ground strewed with fragments of walls, a few pyramids too large for present destruction, and such great heaps of dead bodies that it was impossible to get from place to place without walking over them.
Cortes had resolved that a new city should be built, but it was not so easy to decide where it was to be.

The Aztecs, it seemed, had not originally established themselves on the spot where Mexico was built.
When they came down from the north country, and across the hills into the valley of Mexico, they were but an insignificant tribe, and as yet mere savages.

They settled down in one place after another, and were always driven out by the persecutions of the neighbouring tribes.