Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/147

Rh and bloody campaign was in store for Alvarado, whose fame as a leader was to be made yet brighter by sanguinary successes. The details of the exciting struggles and surprising incidents within the domains of the Quichés and Cakchiquels have been fully related in a previous volume.

A month after the Guatemala expedition the fleet for Honduras left the port of San Juan de Chalchiuhcuecan to take up one end of the new chain of conquest, which might thereupon be stretched southward under the combined banners of veterans, perhaps to the very empire of the Incas just then looming forth in mystic distance with a splendor surpassing even the dazzling visions of the legions of Cortés. Although Honduras proved comparatively barren in gain and glory, yet the incidents connected with the expedition, and its effect on the fortunes of Cortés and New Spain, through the disloyalty of the leader, invest it with remarkable interest.

In his march from Tehuantepec to Guatemala, Alvarado skirted the southern slopes of the Cordillera, whose northern straggling ranges here unite to form a more distinct barrier, crowned with lofty peaks. The plateau and slopes extending northward from this barrier embraced the well-watered region of Chiapas, once the busy haunts of a cultured race whose glories lay enshrined within the matchless ruins of Palenque, guarded by dense and gloomy forest, now the abode of less elevated peoples, notably the dominant Chiapanecs, who from their mountain fastnesses had successfully defied the encroachments of adjoining rulers, even Montezuma. Awed by the fall of his great empire, however, they had hastened to send in what was regarded as unqualified allegiance to the children of the sun. Their land was assigned to the settlers of Espíritu Santo, who soon began to exact