Sandoval
Arrived Soon Afterwards, And Cortes Issued Immediate Orders To March To
The Coast, Which Was About Six Leagues Distant.
Cortes pushed forwards
with his attendants, and crossed the river by means of the two canoes,
swimming the horses.
The Spanish settlement was about two leagues from the
place where Cortes landed, and the colonists were astonished on seeing the
Europeans coming towards them, and still more so when they found it was
the renowned conqueror of Mexico. Cortes received their congratulations
very graciously, and desired them to bring all the canoes they could
collect, and the boats belonging to their ships to assist his army in
crossing. He likewise ordered them to provide bread for the army; but of
this only fifty pounds weight could be got, as they lived almost entirely
on _sapotes_ and other vegetables, and fish.
We had an arm of the sea to cross, and had therefore to wait for low water,
but Cortes had found the passage so dangerous that he sent us word not to
follow till farther orders. The care of passing this dangerous place was
entrusted to Sandoval, who took as effectual measures as possible, but it
took us four days to get over, partly wading and partly swimming. One
soldier and his horse went to the bottom, and was never seen more, and two
other horses were lost. A person named Saavedra, presuming on his
relationship to Cortes, refused obedience to the orders of Sandoval, and
endeavoured to force his passage, even laying his hand on his poinard, and
using disrespectful expressions to Sandoval; who seized him instantly and
threw him into the water, where he was nearly drowned. Our sufferings at
this time were excessive, as during all these four days we had literally
nothing to eat, except by gathering a few nuts and some wild fruits, and
on getting across our condition was not improved. We found this colony to
contain forty men and six women, all yellow and sickly, and utterly
destitute of provisions; so that we were under the necessity of setting
out immediately in search of food both for ourselves and them. For this
purpose, about eighty of us marched, under the command of Luis Marin, to a
town about eight leagues distant, where we found abundance of maize and
vegetables, and great quantities of cacao; and as this place was in the
direct road for Naco, to which Cortes intended to go, he immediately sent
Sandoval and the greatest part of the troops to join us, on receiving the
agreeable intelligence of our good fortune. We sent a plentiful supply of
maize to the miserable colonist who had been so long in a starving
condition, of which they eat to such excess that seven of them died. About
this time likewise a vessel arrived with seven horses, forty hogs, eight
pipes of salted meat, a considerable quantity of biscuit, and fifteen
adventurers from Cuba. Cortes immediately purchased all the provisions,
which he distributed among the colonists, who eat the salted meat so
voraciously that it occasioned diarrhoeas, by which, in a very few days,
fourteen of them were carried off.
As Cortes wished to examine this great river, he caused one of the
brigantines belonging to Avila which had been stranded to be fitted out;
and embarking with thirty soldiers and eight mariners belonging to the
vessel lately arrived, having likewise a boat and four double canoes, he
proceeded up the river to a spacious lake with good anchorage. This lake
was navigable for six leagues, all the adjacent country being subject to
be inundated; but on endeavouring to proceed higher, the current became
stronger, and he came to certain shallows, which prevented the vessels
from proceeding any farther. Cortes now landed with his soldiers, and
advanced into the country by a narrow road which led to several villages
of the natives. In the first of these he procured some guides, and in the
second he found abundance of corn, and many domesticated birds, among
which were pheasants, pigeons, and partridges, which last are often
domesticated by the Indians of America. In prosecuting his route, he
approached a large town called _Cinacan Tencintle_, in the midst of fine
plantations of cacao, where he heard the sound of music and merry-making,
the inhabitants being engaged in a drunken feast. Cortes waited a
favourable opportunity, concealed in a wood close by the town, when
suddenly rushing out, he made prisoners of ten men and fifteen women. The
rest of the inhabitants attacked him with their darts and arrows, but our
people closed with them and killed eight of their chiefs, on which the
rest submitted, sending four old men, two of whom were priests, with a
trifling present of gold, and to petition for the liberation of the
prisoners, which he accordingly engaged to give up on receiving a good
supply of provisions, which they promised to deliver at the ships. A
misunderstanding took place afterwards between Cortes and these Indians,
as he wished to retain three of their women to make bread, and hostilities
were renewed, in which Cortes was himself wounded in the face, twelve of
his soldiers wounded, and one of his boats destroyed. He then returned
after an absence of twenty-six days, during which he had suffered
excessive torment from the mosquitoes. He wrote to Sandoval, giving him an
account of all that had occurred in his expedition to Cinacan, which is
seventy leagues from Guatimala, and ordered him to proceed to Naco; as he
proposed to remain himself on purpose to establish a colony at _Puerto de
Cavallos_[3], for which he desired Sandoval to send back ten of the
Coatzacualco veterans, without whose assistance nothing could be done
properly. Taking with him all the Spaniards who remained at St Gil de
Buena Vista, Cortes embarked in two ships, and arrived in eight days sail
at Puerto de Cavallos, which had a good harbour, and seemed every way well
calculated for a colony, which he established there under the command of
Diego de Godoy, naming the town Natividad.
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