I will now add a few words about Quauhtemoctzin's outward appearance. This monarch was between twenty-three and twenty-four years of age, and could in all truth be termed a handsome man, both as regards his countenance and his figure. His face was rather of an elongated form, with a cheerful look; his eye had great expression, both when he assumed an air of majesty or when he looked pleasantly around him; the colour of his face inclined more to white than to the copper-brown tint of the Indians in general. His wife was a niece of his uncle Motecusuma; she was a young and very beautiful woman.
With regard to the dispute between Sandoval and Holguin as to which could claim the honour of Quauhtemoctzin's capture, Cortes settled it for the present by observing, that a similar dispute once happened among the Romans between Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sylla, when the latter took king Jugurtha prisoner, who had fled for safety to the house of his father-in-law Bocchus. "When Sylla," said Cortes, "made his triumphal entry into Rome, he led Jugurtha by a chain, among his trophies of victory. This Marius considered Sylla had no right to do without asking his permission, he (Marius) being commander-in-chief, and Sylla having merely acted upon his orders; but as Sylla belonged to the order of the patricians, these declared in his favour, they being opposed to Marius, as a stranger of Arpinum, and a man who had risen from the lowest ranks, though he had been seven times consul. From this circumstance arose those civil wars between Marius and Sylla; but the question as to whom the honour of Jugurtha's capture was due was never decided."
After relating this circumstance, Cortes added, that he would lay the matter before the emperor for his imperial decision as to who could claim some memento of the monarch's capture in his armorial bearings. They would therefore have to await a decision on this point from Spain. This, indeed, arrived after the lapse of two years, by which Cortes was permitted to place a series of kings in his escutcheon; as, for instance, Motecusuma and Quauhtemoctzin, kings of Mexico, Cacamatzin of Tezcuco, the kings of Iztapalapan, Cojohuacan, and Tlacupa, and another powerful king, who was a relative of Motecusuma, and lord of Matlaltzinco and of other provinces, and was said to have the best claim to the throne of Mexico. I must now say something of the dead bodies and skulls which we saw in that quarter of the town where Quauhtemoctzin had retreated. It is a real fact, and I can take my oath on it, that the houses and the canals were completely filled with them, a sight which I am unable to describe; and we were scarcely able to move along the streets, and through the courtyards of the Tlatelulco, on account of the number of dead bodies. I have certainly read of the destruction of Jerusalem, but should not like to decide whether the carnage was equally great there as it was here; but this I know, that most of the troops, as well of the town itself as those from the townships and provinces which stood under the dominion of Mexico, were most of them slain; that bodies lay strewed everywhere, and the stench was intolerable; which was the reason why, after the capture of Quauhtemoctzin, the three divisions drew off to their former stations. Cortes himself became indisposed that day, from the horrible stench.