"My heart burns as if it is washed in chilies." - Montezuma on hearing news of the Spaniards.

Although as yet untouched by the newcomers, Montezuma's priests and magicians, the "'keepers of books," the Eagle warriors, had no doubt they faced a crisis. They resolved to analyze these foreigners. All clues were scrutinized. The aliens' food proves to be "white and sweet tasting." Artists who had accompanied Teudile sketched the foreigners on cloth, with their guns and horses.

These paintings were shown to Montezuma with descriptions of what they signified. Everything Montezuma heard alarmed him. The strangers "completely covered their bodies with clothes except for their faces. Their faces were white, their eyes like chalk." Other phenomena were no less unnerving: the noise of the guns, their foul smell and their power to "splinter trees."