Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/261

 swamps, and rivers. I likewise asked them about the road to the province of Chilapan, which, according to the drawing I had, was the next on my road; but they would never tell me, saying that their only mode of travel was by rivers and swamps in their canoes, and that they only knew how to go thither by water and never by land. They did, however, point out to me a chain of mountains, some ten leagues distant perhaps, saying that in its neighbourhood stood the principal town of Chilapanon on the banks of a large river which t joining with the Çagoatan lower down, flowed afterwards into the Tabasco; and that further up the river there was another town, called Acumba ; but neither did they know any road thither by land.

I remained in this town twenty days, during which I never ceased to seek a road leading to somewhere, but I never found one, either great or small; on the  Character of the Country contrary, the country about us had so many swamps and lagoons that it seemed impossible to cross them, but, as we were already in such straits from want of provisions, we commended our souls to God, our Creator, and built over the marsh a bridge three hundred paces in length, which was constructed of many large beams, between thirty-five and forty feet in length, on which cross beams were laid, and on these we passed over, marching through the country in quest of the place where we had been told was the town of Chilapan. Meanwhile, I sent a company of horsemen, with crossbowmen, by another way to search for the town of Acumba, and they found it that same day. By swimming and by means of two canoes which they found there, they surprised the villages whose inhabitants fled so they were unable to capture any except