Monday, the fifth of June, the Governor left Guachoya, receiving a guide from the cacique who remained in his town. They passed through a province called Catalte; and, going through a desert six days' journey in extent, on the twentieth of the month they came to Chaguate.[306] The cacique of the province had been to visit the Governor, Don Hernando de Soto, at Autiamque, where he took him presents of shawls, skins, and salt. The day before Luys de Moscoso arrived, a sick Christian becoming missed, whom the Indians were suspected to have killed, he sent word to the cacique to look for and return him—that in so doing he would continue to be his friend; if otherwise, the cacique should not hide from him anywhere, nor he nor his, and that he would leave his country in ashes. The chief directly came, and, bringing the Christian, with a large gift of shawls and skins, he made this speech:
Excellent Master:
I would not deserve that opinion you have of me for all the wealth of the world. Who impelled me to visit and serve that excellent lord, the Governor, your father, in Autiamque, which you should have remembered, where I offered myself, with all loyalty, truth, and love, to serve and obey his lifetime: or what could have been my purpose, having received favors of him, and without either of you having done me any injury, that I should be moved to do that which I should not? Believe me, no outrage, nor worldly interest, could have been equal to making me act thus, or could have so blinded me. Since, however, in this life, the natural course is, after one pleasure should succeed many pains, fortune has been pleased with your indignation to moderate the joy I felt in my heart at your coming, and have failed where I aimed to hit, in pleasing this Christian, who remained behind lost, treating him in a manner of which he shall himself speak, thinking that in this I should do you service, and intending to come with and deliver him to you at Chaguate, serving you in all things, to the extent possible in my power. If for this I deserve punishment from your hand, I shall receive it, as coming from my master's, as though it were favor.
The Governor answered, that because he had not found him in Chaguete he was incensed, supposing that he had kept away, as others had done; but that, as he now knew his loyalty and love, he would ever consider him a brother, and would favor him in all matters. The cacique went with him to the town where he resided, the distance of a day's journey. They passed through a small town where was a lake, and the Indians made salt: the Christians made some on the day they rested there, from water that rose near by from springs in pools. The Governor was six days in Chaguete, where he informed himself of the people there were to the west. He heard that three days' journey distant, was a province called Aguacay.
On leaving Chaguete, a Christian remained behind, named Francisco de Guzman, bastard son of a gentleman of Seville, who, in fear of being made to pay for gaming debts in the person of an Indian girl, his concubine, he took her away with him; and the Governor, having marched two days before he was missed, sent word to the cacique to seek for and send him to Aguacay, whither he was marching, but the chief never did. Before arriving at this province, they received five Indians, coming with a gift of skins, fish, and roasted venison, sent on the part of the cacique. The Governor reached his town on Wednesday, the fourth day of July,[307] and finding it unoccupied, lodged there. He remained in it a while, making some inroads, in which many Indians of both sexes were captured. There they heard of the South Sea. Much salt was got out of the sand, gathered in a vein of earth like slate, and was made as they make it in Cayas.
Chapter 32
How the Governor went from Aguacay to Naguatex, and what happened to him.
The day the Governor left Aguacay he went to sleep near a small town, subject to the lord of that province. He set the encampment very nigh a salt lake,[308] and that afternoon some salt was made. He marched the next day, and slept between two mountains, in an open grove; the next after, he arrived at a small town called Pato; and on the fourth day of his departure from Aguacay he came to the first inhabited place, in a province called Amaye. There they took an Indian, who said that thence to Naguatex was a day and a half's journey, all the way lying through an inhabited region.
Having passed out of Amaye, on Saturday, the twentieth of July,[309] between that place and Naguatex, at mid-day, along a clump of luxuriant woods,[310] the camp was seated. From thence Indians being seen, who had come to espy them, those on horseback went in their pursuit, killed six, and captured two. The prisoners being asked by the Governor why they had come, they said, to discover the numbers he had, and their condition, having been sent by their lord, the chief of Naguatex; and that he, with other caciques, who came in his company and his cause, had determined on giving him battle that day.