Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/300

 hamlets, belonging to Canec, lord of Taiza, which were called Tenciz.

We did not stop here long, but departed the next day, and, having traversed about six leagues of level country,  The Danger- ous Pass we began to ascend the mountain pass, which is one of the most marvellous things in the world to behold; for were I to try to describe its roughness and difficulties I would entirely fail to make anybody understand me. But, that Your Majesty may have some idea, I will say that, in crossing the eight leagues of this mountain pass, we spent twelve days, I mean until we reached the uttermost end of it; during which time, sixty-eight horses were lost by falling over precipices and being hamstrung, while all the others were so fatigued and injured that we hardly thought we could ever use them again, and more than three months passed before they were fit for service. During all the ascent of this dreadful pass, it poured rain day and night, but such was the character of the mountains that the water never collected anywhere so that we could drink it, and hence we suffered greatly from thirst and our horses perished on account of it; indeed, had it not been that we collected water in copper kettles and other vessels while camping in the ranches and huts we made to shelter us, not a man or horse would have escaped alive. During this crossing, a nephew of mine fell and broke his leg in three or four places, and, aside from the suffering he endured, this increased our difficulties, because we had to carry him.

Our troubles were not yet at an end; for, about a league before reaching the hamlets of Tenciz, which, as I said before, are on the other side of the mountains, we were stopped by a very large river, so swollen by the recent rains that it was impossible to cross it. The Spaniards who had gone ahead had followed up the river and found the most marvellous ford which has ever been seen or