In This March
He Came To A Large Town, In Which He Found Much Poultry, To The Great
Refreshment Of His Troops.
Here, likewise, he took some of the
inhabitants of Chila, whom he employed as messengers to different places.
After a long and difficult march, he arrived at Panuco, but found no
provisions; the country having been exhausted in the war with Cortes, and
by being plundered by the soldiers.
From this place he sent Goncalo de
Ocampo to St Stephano, or Istevan del Puerto, to inquire if the garrison
would submit to his authority. They sent him a favourable answer; but, by
means of an ambush, they made forty of his cavalry prisoners, alleging
that they had come unwarrantably to usurp the government which belonged
to another. Besides this misfortune, Garay lost four of his ships, by
which he was greatly disheartened. While Cortes was preparing an
expedition to Panuco, to resist Garay, Francis de las Casas and Roderigo
de la Paz, brought letters-patent to Mexico, by which the emperor gave
him the government of New Spain, including Panuco. On this he desisted
from going personally on the expedition, but sent Pedro de Alvarado with
a respectable force, both of infantry and cavalry, to defend his
government against aggression, and dispatched Diego de Ocampo to
communicate the letters-patent to Garay; who thought it better for him to
yield himself to Cortes, and went accordingly to Mexico[48].
In the same year, 1523, Gil Goncales de Avila, discovered and peopled a
town called _San Gil da Buena-vista_, in lat. 14 deg. N. almost in the bottom
of the bay of Ascension or Honduras[49]. Likewise, on the 6th December of
this year, Peter de Alvarado was sent by Cortes from Mexico with 300 foot,
170 horse, four field-pieces, and some Mexican nobles, to discover and
conquer Quahutemallan, Utlatlan, Chiassa, Xochnuxco, and other towns
towards the South Sea. After a most fatiguing march of 400 leagues,
passing by Tecoantepec to Xochnuxco, he discovered and conquered the
whole of that country, where he built a city called St Jago de
Quahutemallan, now Guatimala, of which and of the country he subdued, he
is said to have got the government. In this expedition they passed some
rivers, the water of which was so hot that they could scarce endure to
wade them. They found likewise certain hills which produced alum, and one
out of which a liquor like oil distilled; likewise sulphur in great
abundance, from which the Spaniards made excellent gunpowder[50]. On the
8th December of the same year, Cortes sent Diego de Godoy, with a hundred
foot, thirty horse, two field-pieces, and many friendly Indians, to
Spiritu Santo; where, joining the captain of that town, they went to
Chamolla, the capital of a province of the same name, which they reduced
under subjection[51].
In February 1524, Cortes sent Roderigo Rangel, with 150 Spaniards, and
many Tlaxcallans and Mexicans, against the Zapotecas and Nixtecas, and
other provinces not yet well discovered.
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