mand. No sooner had this reënforcement arrived than he despatches the contador with fifty men into the interior, remaining himself in an intrenched camp with the same number. And untaught by previous disasters, no sooner does he thus again divide his terces than hostile natives appear. 'More than twenty thousand of them were soon in the field," says Cogolludo. While attempting to conciliate them the governor narrowly escapes capture and sacrifice to their idols. "On hearing a tumult outside his camp," the chronicler writes, 'the adelantado went out on horseback to see if he could pacify the natives. They were divided into several groups, and approaching one of them which was posted on a small eminence, he asked them whether they were angry, saying that as no harm had been done to them there was no cause for the revolt. The Indians, who had resolved to murder all the Spaniards, approached him as soon as they heard his voice, and having surrounded him, some of them seized his lance, while others held his horse by the reins. They were in the act of dragging him from his saddle, when Blas Gonzalez, seeing his peril, charged at the enemy, and fought with such desperate courage that he prevented his commander from being captured, until others coming to their help they were rescued, though both were wounded, and the horse of Gonzalez was fatally injured."
Warfare, hardship, and desertion[1] ad now so greatly thinned Montejo's ranks, that he resolved to proceed to New Spain for recruits and supplies, for the emperor had given orders[2] that he should there receive all needful assistance. He soon levied a sufficient force; but when on the point of departure he heard that the
- ↑ In a letter to the king, dated Gracias á Dios, Dec. 26, 1545, Montejo says that his people deserted him in Yucatan because there was neither gold nor silver there, and made for Peru, and that after occupying the territory for nine years he was compelled to abandon it. Carta, Squier's MSS., xxii. 128, It is somewhat singular that in a letter to the king, mentioned in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., i. 463, Guzman should have petitioned that the gold and silver might be coined at Española, where they had silver from Yucatan.
- ↑ In a cédula issued from Ocaña, April 4, 1531.
