Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/292

 be an arm of the sea and so large and deep is it that, although its waters are fresh, I even believe that it is so. On a small island in this lake there stood a town which the guides said was the chief one of the Province of Taiza and that if we wished to reach it we could do so only in canoes; hearing this the Spaniards remained there keeping watch while one returned to report to me what had happened. I halted the people, and went ahead on foot to see that lake and its situation, and, upon arriving at that place, I found my scouts had succeeded in capturing an Indian, belonging to the town on the island, who, carrying arms, had come in a very small canoe to reconnoitre the road; and though taken by surprise he would have escaped had not one of our dogs overtaken him before he could spring into the water. I learned from this Indian that his countrymen knew nothing about my arrival. I asked him whether there was any way to reach the town on the island, and he answered that there was none, but that not far distant there was a narrow arm of the lake on the other side of which were some plantations and houses, and that, if we succeeded in reaching there without being seen, we were sure to find canoes. I immediately sent to order the people to follow me, and, accompanied by ten or twelve crossbowmen, I went on foot with the Indian and crossed a great stretch of swamp up to our waists in water, and sometimes even higher. In this manner, we reached the plantations, but, as the road was bad, and we could not always conceal ourselves, we had already been seen and when we got there the inhabitants were hastily taking to their canoes on the lake shore.

I marched along the shores for about two thirds of a