Page:History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas.pdf/59

36 Cortes Arrives in Honduras. “With...innumerable other excessive trials, at the end of many days, they arrived at Honduras and met the Spaniards in search of whom they had come, in the villages of Naco and Nito, which Gil Gonzalez de Avila and Christoval de Olid had settled with Spaniards. The town of Nito was founded by Avila and was called San Gil de Buena Vista. All that happened is to be found and read in the Histories of the Indies and it does not concern this History.

“Only this concerns us: on account of a variety of circumstances Don Fernando Cortes neither returned himself through the land of the Itzas, nor did he send after his horse, nor did he send the Missionary Fathers to the Itzas, as he had offered to do.... So that that wretched little ruler, Lord of the Itzas or Canek, and all his subjects, remained as barbarous and idolatrous as they were before, and even daily grew more so, as well as becoming more horrible, cruel, atrocious, and formidable. And in this state we must leave them until the time comes for us once more to speak of them....”

Though this account of the entrada made by Cortes into the country of the Itzas seems full enough, it differs, nevertheless, from some of the others.

Comparison of Villagutierre with Other Authorities. In the first place Villagutierre tells us that the motive which led Cortes into sending an expedition to Honduras was that “it was a very good land,” and when, because of 0lid's treachery, it became necessary for him to go thither himself, Villagutierre says he took four hundred Spaniards and thirty horses. Bernal Diaz (vol. iv, p. 283 ff.) differs widely from this account in several respects. He says that Cortes hoped to find a passage to the Spice Islands, and that it was for that purpose that he sent out Olid, on whom he believed he could rely. Olid, though brave enough, was not a wise or faithful man. He fell a victim to the machinations of Diego Velazquez, Governor of Cuba, who was a mortal enemy of Cortes.

According to Cogolludo (lib. i, cap. 13) it was very much against the advice of his associates in Mexico that Cortes