Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/80

52 them always to respect and revere the holy image and the cross we had set up, and they would find that they would prove a blessing.

With all our squadron we came, on the 12th of March, to the mouth of the Tabasco, or the Rio de Grijalva, and since we already knew from our experience with Grijalva that no vessel of large size could enter the river, we anchored the larger out at sea, and with the smaller ships and boats carried our men up the river to the point where the palm trees grew. Those of us who had not been with Grijalva were greatly astonished to see the thickets along the river bank swarming with Indians. Besides these, to attack us more than twelve thousand warriors had assembled in Tabasco—the town being a chief town with others subject to it. The reason they were making ready for war was that the people of Chanpoton and other towns of that neighborhood looked upon the Tabascans as cowards for having given their gold trinkets to Grijalva the year before, and they told them they had been too lily-livered to attack us, though they had more warriors than the people of Chanpoton, who had fought us and killed fifty-six of our men. Such taunts as these led the Tabascans to take up arms against us.

Through our interpreter, Aguilar, Cortes asked some Indians who were passing in a canoe what all this disturbance meant, and he added that we had not