Page:History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas.pdf/134

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FRAY ANDRÉS DE AVENDAÑO Y LOYOLA
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draught of wine. We took the remedy and after we had purged ourselves thoroughly, we were, of a sudden, well.

Nohthub. “From this place it is two long leagues to an old deserted place called Nohthub; all the way is overflowed or akalchex. In the rainy season the road is very heavy. In this place we found the camp of the Captain Don Joseph de Estenos, with all his people. It is a pleasant place and has many orange and lemon trees. In it we saw a large enclosure which the Indians made to keep off the Spaniards, when the latter went to despoil them fifteen years before. It has two large aguadas, one at the entrance of the said place, which in the dry season is exhausted; with another large and round basin which God made in a living rock. Another aguada lies in an easterly direction, a distance of half a league, and the water here is permanent and deep. It breeds very good fish of large size and tame, so that, although the soldiers went in swimming, the fish did not flee away, so that they gave an opportunity to any one who had a machete in his hand to kill them. They call these fish crocodiles, because they are of the same shape and with the same scales as crocodiles, and they are very good eating, according to the statement of all who eat them.

Bacechac. “From this Nohthub we went five good leagues to a place which they call Bacechac. In its center are three aguadas, but all were dry. There is much overflowed land or akalchex. There are very large forests with many copal and balsam trees, and many hills, on account of which the paths are impassable in the rainy season. This place has its aguada in a westerly direction, and although it too held no water, necessity made us experts, making deep holes in some parts of it, in order that the land should distil its moisture. So it happened, God giving us sufficient water from night to morning in the said wells which we opened to relieve our need.

“We left this place the next day and traveled about two leagues by some places which are very much submerged and not the less dangerous, as much on account of the hills which surround them as from the chance streams which are met there, until at last we reached a summit which forms on the top a great plain, in which is found an aguada called Celmet.