Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/262

 two men and some women with whom they came to meet me on the road; they also found plenty of provisions. That night, I slept on the open ground.

Next day, it pleased God that we should come to a dryer country with fewer marshes, and those Indians who had been taken at Acumba guided us as far as Chilapan, where we arrived late the next day, finding all the town burned and the natives absent. This town of Chilapan is beautifully situated and very large. It is surrounded by plantations of fruit trees of the country and fields of maize, which, though not yet ripe, were of great comfort to us in our necessity. I remained there two days, laying in supplies for the journey, and sending out some expeditions into the neighbourhood to capture, if possible, some natives from whom I might learn about the road; but with the exception of two at first, who were found concealed in the village, all our searching was in vain. I got information from these, however, about the road to Tepetitan, otherwise called Tamacastepeque; although they hardly knew their way thither, we were fortunate enough, sometimes by their guidance, and sometimes by half feeling our way, to reach that town within two days.

On the road, we had to cross a large river, called Chilapan, from which the town took its name, and this was accomplished with great difficulty owing to the deep and rapid stream; we used rafts as there were no canoes there and we lost a negro who was drowned, and much of the baggage of the Spaniards. After this river, which we crossed at a place a league and a half distant from the said village of Chilapan, we had to cross several large swamps before reaching Tepetitan, in all of which but one the horses sank to their knees and many times to their ears. Between Chilapan and Tepetitan, a distance of six or seven leagues, the country was full of similar