The Towns of principal note inhabited by the Spaniards in this Province, are 1. Antequera, in the Valley aforesaid, a stately City, and beautifi’d with a fair Cathedral Church, built with Pillars of the finest Marble, of great heighth and bigness. The River which glides by the Walls, springing out of the Ground, runs to the Mountain Coatlan. Not far from thence lies the Village Herrera, which boasts four hundred Spanish Families, though some say that the greatest part of them are Indians, who pay the Spaniards Cotton Cloaks and Nuts for Tribute.
2. Illephonso de los Zapotecas, lies on a Mountain belonging to the Mixes, anciently a salvage, strong, and long-bearded People, who speak a gross Language, and in former times went naked, onely a white Deer-skin, Tann’d in Man’s Brains, about their Middle. They maintain’d continual War against the Zapoteca’s, and could never have been subdu’d by the Spaniards, had it not been for their Dogs, which kept them in such awe, that thirty Spanish Soldiers ventur’d to live in Illephonso amongst thirty thousand Mixes, who now drive a Trade in Cotton, Maize, and Gold.
3. San Jago de Nexapa appears at a great distance on a high Mountain, where also twenty Soldiers with their Dogs were wont to awe the cruel Natives.
4. The last Place, built by Gonzales de Sandovall, Anno 1522. is Villa del Espiritu Santo, Commands fifty Indian Villages, which with great difficulty were brought to submit to the Spaniards.
The River Aquivicolco affords a convenient Harbor, the Mouth thereof being a hundred and ninety Paces broad.
Upon the Southern Ocean is the Haven Guatulco, where the Ships that Sail to Honduras and Peru take in their Lading. The Custom-house belonging to this Place was first plunder’d by Sir Francis Drake, and nine years after burnt by Candish.
The River Ometipu, which springing out of the Mountain Cacatepec, falls into Tepoanteque, abounds with divers sorts of good Fish, especially Cra-Fish. There are also reckon’d of the Natives of this Province, no less than fifteen thousand Persons that pay Tribute to the Spaniards, besides Women and Children, and also a great number of Spaniards.
Sect. V.
Panuco.
Bounds and Description of Panuco.
Panuco is the most Northerly Province of New Spain, by some call’d Guasteca, bounded on the East with the Gulf of Mexico; on the West with Uxitipa, a Countrey of New Gallicia; on the North with some undiscover’d Countreys of Florida, from which it is divided by the River of Palms; on the South with Mechoacan and Mexicana. It is call’d Panuco, from a River of that Name, which turning from the Mountains Tepecsuan in New Gallicia, and dividing New Biscay from the Province of Zacatecas, passeth through the midst of this Countrey also, and at last empties it self into the Gulf.