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Rh be greatly shortened. While hopeful that it would be found, he suggested that the trade might in any case be secured by this western route, if New Spain were made the entrepôt, goods being readily conveyed overland by the aid of the natives. The departure of Cortés for Honduras, in pursuit both of Olid and the strait, delayed the proposed expeditions by sea, although the smallest vessel was sent by one of the officials on a short vain search for certain islands which aboriginal tradition placed to the south. It was but the delay of bitter disappointment.

On the disbandment of the first colonists in Michoacan, those destined for Zacatula set forth in that direction under Álvarez Chico, to the number of a hundred foot and forty horse, and a force of Mexican and Tarascan auxiliaries. On the way they received confirmatory accounts of the wealth of Colima, a province extending along the South Sea to the north of Zacatula, and of which glowing rumors had reached them at Tzintzuntzan. They were in search of treasures, not of garrison life at Zacatula, and so without permission they turned aside to enter the coveted province. A dispute arising, a portion of the forces