Here Our Men
Were Very Sick Of Their Agues, And With Eating Of Another Fruit, Called
In The Indian Tongue, Guiaccos, Which Fruit Did Bind Us Sore.
The next
morning we departed from thence with our two Spaniards and Indian guard
as aforesaid.
Of these two Spaniards the one was an aged man, who all
the way did very courteously entreat us, and would carefully go before
to provide for us both meat and things necessary to the uttermost of
his power. The other was a young man, who all the way travelled with
us, and never departed from us, who was a very cruel caitiff, and he
carried a javelin in his hand, and sometimes when as our men with very
feebleness and faintness were not able to go so fast as he required
them, he would take his javelin in both his hands and strike them with
the same between the neck and the shoulders so violently that he would
strike them down, then would he cry and say: "Marches, marches,
Engleses perros, Luterianos, enemicos de Dios;" which is as much to say
in English, "March, march on you English dogs, Lutherans, enemies to
God." And the next day we came to a town called Pachuca, and there are
two places of that name, as this town of Pachuca, and the mines of
Pachuca, which are mines of silver, and are about six leagues distant
from this town of Pachuca towards the north-west.
Here at this town the good old man our governor suffered us to stay two
days and two nights, having compassion of our sick and weak men, full
sore against the mind of the young man his companion. From thence we
took our journey, and travelled four or five days by little villages
and Stantias, which are farms or dairy houses of the Spaniards, and
ever as we had need the good old man would still provide us sufficient
of meats, fruits, and water to sustain us. At the end of which five
days we came to a town within five leagues of Mexico, which is called
Quoghliclan, where we also stayed one whole day and two nights, where
was a fair house of Grey Friars, howbeit, we saw none of them. Here we
were told by the Spaniards in the town that we had not more than
fifteen English miles from thence to Mexico, whereof we were all very
joyful and glad, hoping that when we came thither we should either be
relieved and set free out of bonds, or else be quickly despatched out
of our lives; for seeing ourselves thus carried bound from place to
place, although some used us courteously, yet could we never joy nor be
merry till we might perceive ourselves set free from that bondage,
either by death or otherwise.
The next morning we departed from thence on our journey towards Mexico,
and so travelled till we came within two leagues of it, where there was
built by the Spaniards a very fair church, called Our Lady Church, in
which there is an image of Our Lady of silver and gilt, being as high
and as large as a tall woman, in which church, and before this image,
there are as many lamps of silver as there be days in the year, which
upon high days are all lighted.
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