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. 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.