In the forenoon the men reported that the boat was ready. After paddling swiftly down the stream for several leagues we entered a channel whose muddy banks were covered with alligators. The river also swarmed with them. Upon several occasions I thought that the canoe was in danger of being capsized by the waves made by the alligators, in consequence, as we approached them, of their habit of slipping off the bank into the river, and I told the Indians to be careful. They said that the canoe was perfectly safe, but that if, by any accident, we should be rolled over there was nothing to be feared, as the alligators never attacked people in the water. I was doubtful about this theory, although it may be correct. It is well known that natives in other parts of the world have been seized by alligators when incautiously going too near them when they were watching for their prey on the banks. But I do not know if there is any evidence to show that they would seize men in the same manner if they were actually floating in the water.[85]
Lower down the river we came to a place where the stream was sluggish. The banks were flat and covered with dense vegetation. Here we saw an extraordinary scene. The water was thick, green, and putrid with animal matter. The surface was covered with the inflated bodies of dead alligators.
Large carrion birds were feeding upon them in the most revolting manner. Their claws were firmly fixed upon the hard skin of the reptiles, and they drove their beaks, like pickaxes, deep down into their entrails and gorged themselves with the decaying flesh. The stench was horrible, and together with the oppressive heat, the foul state of the air and the enormous mosquitoes, made this part of the journey very disgusting.
At sunset we arrived at a place called Jonuta, near the junction of the river Palisada with the river Usamacinta, and the canoe was hauled up on the bank. We could not have been far from the spot where Cortes crossed over on his march to Honduras, one of the most extraordinary military expeditions, through an absolutely unknown country and amongst unknown men, that has ever been successfully accomplished. This part of the march through the forest and across the numerous streams of the estuary of the Usamacinta was especially difficult and laborious, and at one time, the forces were driven to great straits for want of provisions. The events that occurred here are described by Bernal Diaz, who accompanied the troops, and by Cortes in his despatch to the Emperor Charles V. One of these events was so remarkable that it at once arrests the attention.
The Spaniards and their Indian allies had been for several days suffering from famine, and the state of affairs in the camp was becoming serious. It was then discovered that several acts of cannibalism had taken place. “It appeared,” states Bernal Diaz, “that certain Caciques from Mexico had captured two or three of the Indians belonging to the villages that we had passed through, and had brought them hidden amongst their baggage, and on account of the hunger on the road they killed them and roasted them in ovens which were made under the ground with stones, as was their custom in Mexico, and they devoured them, and in the same way they had also secreted the two guides that we had with us who had run away, and they ate them. When Cortes knew what had happened he ordered the Mexican Caciques to be called together and spoke angrily to them, and told them that if such things occurred again he would punish them. The Franciscan friar, who accompanied us, also preached to them many holy and good sayings and after he had concluded his sermon Cortes, as a matter of justice, ordered a Mexican Indian to be burnt on account of the murder of the Indians that they had eaten.”
Cortes in reporting this punishment to the Emperor says,—“I ordered him to be burnt, giving the said Señor to understand the reason for this act of justice. That it was because he had killed an Indian and eaten him; which act was forbidden by your Majesty and that I, in your Royal name, had notified and ordered that it should not be done, and that therefore for having killed and eaten him I ordered him to be burnt.”[86]
Another strange event that took place whilst the troops were in this region, was the tragic fate of Guatimozin, who had succeeded Montezuma as Emperor of Mexico. It is difficult to understand what could have been the object that Cortes had in view when he ordered this monarch to be executed. He may have thought it expedient to destroy, as far as possible, the whole race of caciques throughout New Spain and thus minimise the risk of any organized rebellion. These chiefs ruled with absolute power over the natives, and it is possible that the Spanish authorities deemed it advisable to get rid of them. Hundreds of them were burnt alive at the stake upon the slightest pretexts. After one of the local insurrections the officer who suppressed it reported that he had burnt forty of the rebellious caciques. In a similar manner the leaders in Cuba and Haiti were also destroyed.
In the case of Guatimozin, Cortes considered that he and his cousin, the King of Tlacupa, had been proved guilty of conspiring with other Indians to kill the Spaniards; and he accordingly ordered them to be put to death. The sentence was immediately carried out, and the two Mexican monarchs were hanged upon a tree within sight of the army as it continued its march through the forest.
The positions where these events occurred can only be approximately determined. The wooden bridges which were constructed for the passage of the troops have disappeared. All local records of this famous march have passed away. The villages or pueblos mentioned by the conquerors no longer exist, and their names are forgotten. It is only by the most attentive study that even a presumptive knowledge of the route can be obtained. From the accounts given in the official dispatches and the statements of Bernal Diaz, and also from the fact that Cortes steered a straight course by compass, it may be concluded that the forces must have passed near Jonuta and about twenty-eight miles from the ruins of Palenque.
With respect to the acts of cannibalism it should be observed, in justice to other tribes, that the caciques who devoured the bodies were Mexicans, and there are reasons for believing that before the arrival of the Aztecs cannibalism was unknown in Central America. The method of cooking by baking in ovens which, after the holes had been dug out of the ground, were surrounded and covered by heated stones, are the same as those that were customary with the Maoris in New Zealand, who, after their fights, feasted upon their captured enemies in that manner.