Page:History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas.pdf/97

 Padre Fuensalida returned to Merida, leaving Orbita in charge of the Indians at Tipu.

Thus ended the entrada of Fuensalida and Orbita into the country of the Itzas. One cannot but admire the stanch [sic] faith and unswerving loyalty to their ideals of these two men. They were both of great personal courage and virtue, but from the foregoing account of their entrada it is easy enough to deduce that Fuensalida was the greater man of the two. Orbita was skillful in making effective altar displays, but he was hasty and unwise in his treatment of the idol of the horse. We must, however, frankly acknowledge that for two men to go alone and unarmed into the midst of a powerful nation of barbarians whom they believed to be cannibals was a deed of very great bravery, especially as they had no expectations of personal material gain. This entrada of 1618 is just barely mentioned by Fray Andrés de Avendaño y Loyola (30 recto), who, however, speaks of the idol incident as a mistake of policy.