refreshment with the said carriers, and to tell them how I was left to die in the forest. Scarcely had they heard this, when without any delay, they started out to come and get me, and the distance which it took my two Indians to go in an hour and a half, the said carriers had to take a day and a half in finding me, without their losing their road, by which the miracle can easily be understood. Secondly, that my Indians, coming to Chuntucí, and meeting these carriers loading, was all one (i.e., simultaneous), so that if they had stopped even a little, they would not have met them, and consequently would not have found supplies to bring to me, and even less should I have been able to start out for a settlement. Therefore the hurry which I showed in sending them away was by divine direction. They took me in the said hammock, and though it was a convenience on account of the rest that it gave, it was also some affliction to me, since, although they wrapped me up very well in their cloaks, every little while it gave me cramps in all my body, I being stiff and cold from head to foot. At which they warmed the cloaks again, and rubbing my hands and feet with them all warm, the muscles again were stretched, although it lasted but a short time. At last I reached the town of Chuntucí, on the Sunday of Septuagesima, which was on the 19th of February, in this year of sixteen hundred and ninety-six, about three o'clock in the afternoon,- a result surely very different from what I thought,- that I should ever be in the said town again, after the extremity to which I had come. All that afternoon I stayed looking at this town, and I did not believe yet that I was really there. Blessed be the mercy of God, who showed it thus in my case. For his divine Majesty alone, of his own accord, could show such compassion on this miserable sinner. Infinite thanks be given for so great blessings as he gave me, and may his divine Majesty so will, that it redound to his honor and glory through infinite centuries of centuries. Amen. The Indian carriers continued in their pious work of conveying me and of caring for my Indian singers, so that both in them and in me, a great change of condition resulted from the fresh food, which put us on the road to life."
Avendaño set out shortly afterwards for Merida.
