The traders replied that they were men clad in black and white garments, who wore their hair cut in the form of a wreath, who ate no meat, and who desired neither gold nor cloaks, nor feathers nor cacao, who were not married yet lived chaste lives, who sang the praises of God both day and night, and possessed beautiful images, before which they knelt in prayer, and that these men alone could explain the meaning of the verses; but that such good men were they, and so ready to impart their knowledge to all, that should the cacique send for them they would most willingly come to instruct him. The cacique pondered over the words of the traders, and finally agreed that his younger brother, a youth of twenty-two years, should accompany the traders on their return journey to Guatemala. He privately instructed the youth to seize every opportunity to learn if it were really true that the padres possessed neither gold nor silver, and did not beg for it nor hunt for it, as all other Christians did, and whether it were true that they neither had women in their houses nor treated with them elsewhere. It is needless to say that the young Indian chieftain was well received at Guatemala by Las Casas and his companions, and that he returned to his country well pleased, in company with Luis Cancer, who successfully commenced the conversion of the people.
In October 1537 Las Casas himself set out for Sacapulas, and was soon to have proof given him of the influence of the missionary teaching. The cacique, who was known to the Spaniards by the name of Don Juan, had made arrangements for the marriage of his brother, the youth who had accompanied the traders to Guatemala, to the daughter of the Cacique of Coban, and had prepared great festivities wherewith to celebrate the wedding. On such occasions it was an old custom to perform certain ceremonies when visitors from Coban crossed the river which divided the two jurisdictions; but in this instance before the members of the bridal party had arrived at the river banks, the cacique Don Juan sent a messenger to them to say that the festivities, dances, and feasts which he had prepared in their honour would afford ample proof of the great contentment with which he awaited their coming. He, however, begged of them to leave behind the turkeys and other birds and animals which they were bringing with them to sacrifice on the passage of the river, for, time-honoured as was that custom, he was no longer prepared to take his part in it, having learned to look on such customs as naught but vanity and deceit with which the Devil had blinded his eyes, and that the Padres had taught him to pay adoration to the one true and only God. Such a request caused consternation amongst the chiefs from Coban, and their first impulse was to return with the bride to her home and declare war on Don Juan, for they feared that his acceptance of Christian teaching would entail the subjection of his country to the rule of the Spaniards, and that it
