After this, we continued our march with much circumspection, being apprehensive of a mutiny among the Mexican troops in revenge for the execution of their chiefs; but these poor creatures were so exhausted by famine, sickness, and fatigue, that they did not seem even to have bestowed a thought on the matter.  At night we came to a deserted village; but on searching we found eight priests, whom we brought to Cortes.  He desired them to recal the inhabitants, which they readily promised, requesting him not to injure their idols in a temple close to some buildings in which Cortes was quartered, which he agreed to, yet expostulated with them on the absurdity of worshipping compositions of clay and wood.  They seemed as if it would have been easy to induce them to embrace the doctrines of our holy faith; and soon brought us twenty loads of fowls and maize.  On being examined by Cortes about the bearded men with horses, they said that these people dwelt at a place called Nito, at the distance of seven suns, or days journey from their village, and offered to guide us to that place.  At this time Cortes was exceedingly sad and ill-humoured, being fretted by the difficulties and misfortunes of his march, and his conscience upbraided him for the cruelty he had committed upon the unfortunate king of Mexico.  He was so distracted by these reflections, that he could not sleep, and used to walk about at night, as a relief for his anxious thoughts.  Going in the dark to walk in a large apartment which contained some of the Indian idols, he missed his way and fell from a height of twelve feet, by which he received a severe contused wound in his head.  He endeavoured to conceal this circumstance from general knowledge, and got his wounds cured as well as he could, keeping his sufferings to himself.

After leaving this place, we came in two days to a district inhabited by a nation called the Mazotecas, where we found a newly built town, fortified by two circular enclosures of pallisades, one of which was like a barbican, having loop-holes to shoot through, and was strengthened by ditches.  Another part of the town was inaccessible, being on the summit of a perpendicular rock, on the top of which the natives had collected great quantities of stones for their defence.  And a third quarter of the town was defended by an impassable morass.  Yet after all these defensive preparations, we were astonished to find the town entirely abandoned, though every house was full of the different kinds of provisions which the country afforded, besides which it had a magazine stocked with arms of all sorts.  While we were expressing our astonishment at these circumstances, fifteen Indians came out of the morass in the most submissive manner, and told us that they had been forced to the construction of this fortress as their last resort, in an unsuccessful war with a neighbouring nation, called the Lazandones as far as I can now remember.  They brought back the inhabitants,