Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/258

 me some fifteen or twenty canoes to bring provisions up that river from the caravels lying there, and to help me to cross the river and to transport the provisions to the chief town of Zaguatan, which, it afterwards appeared, was some twelve leagues up the river from where I crossed; and they did all this, complying exactly with my request.

After discovering the road to the River Zalapa, which, as I said, we had to cross, I left the last village of the province of Çupilco, called Anaxuxuan, and slept that first night on the open ground between some lagoons; and early the next day we reached the river but found no canoes in which to cross because those I had sent to ask from the chief of Tabasco had not arrived. I learnt, moreover, that the scouts who went ahead were opening the road up the river from the other side, because, having been told that it flowed through the principal town of the said province, they naturally followed its course so as not to go astray. One of them had gone in a canoe by water to reach the town the sooner, and on his arrival had found all the people in a commotion, so he spoke to them through an interpreter he had with him; and, after succeeding in calming them somewhat, he sent some Indians in his canoe down the river to tell me what had happened with the natives of that town, and that he was coming down himself, opening the road by which I was to march until he should meet the scouts who were working up on this other side. This news gave me great pleasure, not merely because it made known the peaceful disposition of the natives, but also because it assured to me a road which I had thought was doubtful, or at least very difficult. On the canoe brought by these Indians, and some rafts which I had built out of logs, I managed to send all the heavy baggage to the other side of the river, which at that point is very wide. While