This was an important city of the Mames, where Gonzalo de Alvarado expected warm work, judging from the late formidable resistance. On arrival, however, he found the place abandoned, and such of the houses as had not been destroyed stripped of furniture and utensils, without a handful of provisions. Cavalry troops were sent out in different directions, and one under the command of Gaspar Aleman fell in with three hundred Indian archers, who without hesitation attacked the horsemen, among others wounding Aleman in the face. But they were soon routed, and in the pursuit three prisoners were taken, one of whom was a chief named Sahquiab, a captain in Caibil Balam's army. When brought into the presence of Gonzalo de Alvarado, he informed him that his sovereign had retired to the almost impregnable city of Zakuléu,[XXVII-40] where, provided with provisions and stores, he deemed himself secure. The captive was thereupon sent by Gonzalo to Caibil Balam with offers of peace and a charitable proposal to teach him the doctrines of the Christian religion. But Sahquiab did not return, nor came any answer to Gonzalo. A second embassy, composed of Indians from Utatlan, was rudely refused audience with a shower of arrows. This exhausted the patience of Gonzalo and he marched on Zakuléu. As soon as his approach was observed by the Mames an army six thousand strong sallied forth to give him battle. The engagement which followed was maintained by the Mames with the same stubborn valor exhibited in previous fights, and marked by similar carnage. A reserve of two thousand, which sallied during the battle from Zakuléu to the support of their countrymen, made an ineffectual attempt to turn the tide of victory, only adding to the victims; and routed in all directions the Mames fled to their stronghold in the mountains.[XXVII-41]
PREPARING TO STORM ZAKULÉU.
Owing to the impossibility of storming so impregnable a place as Zakuléu, Gonzalo closely invested it by stationing troops at the few points where egress seemed possible. On the third day of the siege Diego Lopez de Villanueva, while reconnoitring with a body of cavalry, observed smoke issuing from the woods on the other side of the river.[XXVII-42] Having crossed with much difficulty, he fell in with three hundred Indians in charge of a large supply of provisions, which they intended to introduce into the beleaguered city, and which Villanueva promptly appropriated.
The inactive warfare soon wore out the patience of the Spaniards, and Gonzalo began to cut a road suitable for cavalry up the most practicable part of the steep. Day by day, from morning to night, the sound of the pick was heard, and the work continued uninterrupted with but little loss to the besiegers, though the heights were thronged with Mames, who used every effort to impede its progress. The cross-bow and arquebuse were far more deadly than the sling and arm-drawn bow, and the Mames suffered heavily.
In the midst of these operations an army of eight thousand mountaineers appeared on the plain, presenting a most unusual spectacle—naked, and hideous with war-paint, unrelieved by plume or ornament of any kind, only by the glitter of their weapons. The Spanish captain immediately made preparation for battle. Leaving a sufficient number to protect the work and guard the camp,[XXVII-43] he advanced against them with the remainder of his forces, and was soon engaged in a desperate struggle. Three several times the ranks of the mountaineers were broken, and as often did they rally and attack with ever increasing fury. Only the steel and cotton armor of the Spanish forces saved them from destruction. As it was, lance and sword, bullet and bolt, reaped the usual harvest, and on the plain, saturated with blood and bespotted with mangled bodies, the Spaniards at last stood triumphant.[XXVII-44]
Thenceforth the siege continued uninterrupted. The work of cutting the road dragged slowly on, and by the middle of October both besiegers and besieged were undergoing intense suffering. Within the city famine was daily gathering its victims; every eatable substance, to the leather of their shields, had been consumed, and the survivors were feeding on the bodies of the dead. Scarcity of provisions, too, was felt in the Spanish camp. But this was not the worst. The weather was unusually severe; icy hailstorms and keen frosts caused much suffering to the invaders, unaccustomed to the cold of that altitude. Fever and ague also attacked them. From the rain and hail that fell the plain had become a swamp, and day by day Gonzalo saw the number of his haggard troops' grow smaller. A more speedy method of reducing the place must be adopted or the attempt abandoned. Accordingly he sent off his sick to Huehuetenango, and stopping work on the road, prepared to make the desperate attempt to storm the place with scaling ladders.[XXVII-45] He had already constructed a number of these ladders, huge in size and wide enough to allow three men to ascend abreast, and was on the point of making the attack when there appeared an envoy from Caibil Balam suing for peace. This unfortunate ruler had previously attempted to escape by night with his family and an escort of the principal chiefs; but having fallen in with a patrolling party, he was wounded in the arm with a cross-bow bolt and compelled to return. And now he had taken counsel with his chiefs on the subject of surrender. He had represented to them that all hope of relief was gone, while his famished subjects were dying around him. Submission alone could save the few survivors. The chiefs had eagerly approved his words, and the tender of submission was made. Gonzalo's satisfaction at this unexpected termination of the siege was indeed great. A spot midway between the gate of Zakuléu and the quarters of the cavalry was appointed as the place of meeting for the settlement of terms, and Gonzalo, accompanied by Loarca, Salazar, Arévalo, and twelve others, there met the humbled Caibil Balam. The Spaniard's reception of the native ruler was friendly in the extreme, and with an embrace, Gonzalo assured him of his love and friendship. Under such kindly treatment, so little expected, the stoical self-command of the weakened warrior gave way, and he wept as he returned the victor's greeting.
THE COUNTRY PACIFIED.
The Spaniards then took formal possession of the city in the name of the king of Spain.[XXVII-46] They destroyed the fortification at the entrance,[XXVII-47] and made more practicable the road across the ravine. The surrounding country was afterward explored and the towns subjected to Spanish rule. In Huehuetenango Gonzalo de Alvarado stationed a strong garrison, with Gonzalo de Solis as captain, and having taken all the necessary measures for the permanent tranquillity of his newly conquered territory, he returned to Guatemala City toward the end of the year.
Henceforth conquest, oppression, and destruction marched hand-in-hand over the country, and the result was a national and social eclipse of the fallen races. Their arts and sciences were soon forgotten; their architectural skill was lost; and from a state of happy development their life as a nation was blotted out. To what extent the progress of the world would have been benefited or retarded, had the aboriginal inhabitants of the American table-lands survived as integral nations, it is impossible to say; but we may question how much the occupation of the country by the Spaniards contributed toward general advancement. It is thought by some that the great Indian nations had reached the limit of their present line of progress when the Spaniards arrived. In Guatemala the individual kings had by long lines of succession arrived at that stage of monarchy when power begets luxury and decay. Without European interference there might have been a relapse and a dark age; and a later view, had discovery been delayed to our own time for instance, might have found Mexico and Central America overrun by savage hordes from the north and ruined cities scattered over the land. To this fancy I am not prepared wholly to subscribe.[XXVII-48]