Page:History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas.pdf/189

166 water from the dew and rains for a long time, and by tapping them in the stem, the water which they have preserved comes out, although it is dirty and bad smelling; but the thirst we felt was more so. These same plants served us for food, by eating the stems of each leaf; something like two fingers of white that they have, since that part is the most tender, and the rest is very bitter and hard. In the same way we used to find in the said akalchees some roots of trees to gnaw, so that, as the proverb says, 'Afflictions with bread are of less account,' we did not feel the sores which those cutting grasses had caused us, as I have said, in exchange for what we found there of food and drink.

Some Hills are Reached. "These three days of akalchees having passed, there followed three other days of hills and very high ridges, so that we inevitably had to pass them, since they lay in all four directions. These followed one after the other in such a way that, having finished climbing one, we went down it again, without finding an eighth of a mile level below. Upon which we again ascended the next one, for all of these were so high that their heights cannot be told except to say that in their deep valleys the rays of the sun do not penetrate. So weak did we become from ascending these hills on account of the fatigue, as well as by going down, because of the stony ground, or for both reasons, it was necessary to make use of the trees, which cover the hills, the most of which are the said palms called Cumes, full of penetrating thorns, which injured our feet, hands and bodies, since falling from weariness, we were wont to strike against them.

"On the top, then, of one of these hills, we found a broad aguada,-a thing which surprised us much, since there were not any other high places around it, from which the water could come. There were there very many flint stones which caused injury enough to our feet on account of our going barefoot. I do not know to what to attribute that water on that high hill top, since in the preceding ravines, which, for the most part, were rivers, although now dry, water was not found, except to a miracle, by which God gave us to understand that he had not forgotten our needs, since with so much climbing