Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/311

 I asked the guide why he had hoaxed me thus, and he answered that he had not done so, but that the Spaniards whom I had sent with him refused to go on though they had been close to the spot where the river joined the sea; and indeed many of the Spaniards even admitted that they had heard the sound of the sea very distinctly, so they could not have been very far from it.

I cannot express what I felt at seeing myself so beyond help, and almost beyond hope, faced with the fear that none of us would escape death by starvation,  Conditions at Nito God, our Lord, Who always relieves necessities, even those of one so unworthy as I, and Who has so often delivered me in such because I am in the royal service of Your Majesty guided thither a ship which was coming from the Islands, with no idea of finding me, and which carried some thirty men, besides the crew and thirteen horses, seventy odd swine, twelve casks of salt meat and thirty loads of bread, of the kind used in the Islands. We all gave thanks to our Lord, Who had rescued us in our great necessity; and I bought all those provisions of the ship for the price of four thousand pesos. I had already worked at repairing a caravel which the Spaniards there had allowed to go almost to pieces, and had begun building a brigantine from pieces of other vessels which had been wrecked thereabouts, so that, when this ship arrived, the caravel was already repaired; though I believe we would never have finished the brigantine had that ship not come, because it brought us a man who, though not really a ship's carpenter, was yet sufficiently versed in that trade.

In scouring the country, a path was discovered leading through some rough mountains to a certain town, called Leguela, eighteen leagues from there, where plenty of provisions were found, though, owing to the bad road, it was impossible to avail ourselves of them.

Some Indians captured there told us that the place