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. Expecting by this time that
Sandoval might have arrived at Naco, which is not far distant from Puerto
Cavallos, Cortes sent a letter for him to that place, requiring a
reinforcement of ten of the veteran soldiers of Coatzacualco, as he
intended to proceed for the bay of Honduras; but this letter reached us in
our last-mentioned quarters as we had not yet reached Naco. Leaving Cortes
for the present, I shall only say that he was so tormented by the
mosquitoes, which prevented him from procuring rest either by night or day,
that he had almost lost his life or his senses.
On receiving this last letter from the general, Sandoval pressed on for
Naco, but was obliged to halt at a place called _Cuyocan_, in order to
collect the stragglers who had gone in quest of provisions. We were also
impeded by a river, and the natives on every side were hostile. Our line
of march was now extremely long, by the great number of invalids,
especially of the Mexicans, who were unable to keep up with the main body;
on which account Sandoval left me at this place, with the command of eight
men at the ferry, to protect and bring up the stragglers. One night the
natives attacked my post, setting fire to the house in which we were
lodged, and endeavoured to carry away our canoe; but, with the assistance
of some of our Mexicans who had come up, we beat them off; and, having
collected all the invalids who had loitered behind, we crossed the river
next day, and set but to rejoin Sandoval. A Genoese, who had been sometime
ill, sunk at length through weakness, occasioned by poverty of diet, and
died on the road, and I was obliged to leave his body behind. When I made
my report to Sandoval, he was ill pleased at me for not having brought on
the dead body; but I told him we had already two invalids on every horse,
and one of my companions said rather haughtily, that we had enough of
difficulty to bring on ourselves, without carrying dead men. Sandoval
immediately ordered me and that soldier, whose name was Villanueva, to go
back and bury the Genoese, which we did accordingly, and placed a cross
over his grave. We found a purse in his pocket, containing some dice, and
a memorandum of his family and effects in Teneriffe. God rest his soul!
_Amen_. In about two days we arrived at Naco, passing a town named
_Quinistlan_, and a place where mines have been since discovered. We found
Naco to be a very good town, but it was abandoned by its inhabitants, yet
we procured plenty of provisions and salt, of which we were in very great
need.
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