After our return, we were busily occupied in preparing for a general sally on the next day after but one, with four military engines of strong timber like towers, each of which was calculated to contain twenty-five men under cover, with portholes for the artillery, and for muskets and crossbows.  During this interval we had likewise to repair the breaches which the Mexicans had made in our walls, and to resist their attempts to scale them, often in twenty places at once.  The Mexicans constantly used the most injurious language against us; saying that the voracious animals in the great temple had been kept fasting for two days, that they might be ready to devour our bodies, when we were sacrificed to their gods.  They assured us at the same time that our allies were to be put into cages to fatten, and that they would soon recover our ill got treasure.  Sometimes they adjured us in the most plaintive terms to restore their king to liberty, and they annoyed us without ceasing by flights of arrows, constantly shouting and whistling.  On the ensuing morning at day-break, having first recommended ourselves to GOD, we sallied out from our quarters with the turrets, such as I have seen in other places, and called mantas or burros.  Our column was headed by a party of musketeers and crossbow-men, and our cavalry on our flanks, occasionally charging the enemy.  Our purpose was to assail the great temple, which by its elevation and strong enclosures, served as a citadel to the Mexicans, and we advanced therefore in that direction, accompanied by our turrets; but the enemy resisted all our efforts with the most determined obstinacy.  I will not attempt to relate all the circumstances of this desperate battle, or the difficulty which we had to encounter in driving the enemy from a very strong house which they occupied.  The arrows of the Mexicans wounded many of our horses, notwithstanding that they wore defensive armour; and when our cavalry attempted at any time to charge or to pursue the enemy, they threw themselves into the canals, while others sallied out from the houses on both sides with long lances, assailing our people in the rear and on both flanks.  It was utterly impossible for us to burn the houses, or to pull them down, as they all stood singly in the water, communicating only by means of draw-bridges; and it was too dangerous for us to attempt reaching them by swimming, as they showered vollies of stones upon us by slings, and threw large stones upon our heads from the terraces of their house tops.  Even when a house was set on fire, it was very long of taking effect; and even when we succeeded, the flames could not communicate to the other houses, as they were all separated by canals, and their roofs were terraced, not thatched.