"We took leave of each other with the mutual love and tenderness, which the loving companionship of those who had followed me faithfully through so great hardships required. We charged each other to remember one another in our poor and humble prayers. With this they went off with the benediction of God and of myself, I remaining with the three Indians, though one was dying (and he died later) and the rest with their strength exhausted as mine was.
"The departure of the Padres, my companions, and my beginning to undergo new calamities, was all at the same time; for on those first three days it was all passing through akalchees, or overflowed lands, although they were dry but very much obstructed and closed up with low and thorny trees which grew there, and with those cutting grasses which I spoke of above, so that we were in constant trouble in passing through them, reopening once more all the wounds which we had on our legs. And at that time we found ourselves with bare feet and legs, and with our clothes in pieces, without getting any more comfort from them than to cover myself with them at night; also a steel for striking fire, which by a miracle we saved among the heathen Ytzaes, belonged to my companions, so that they took it with them, and I remained without any human comfort, nor did they take anything except the said steel."
A Desperate Situation. "In this final and extreme need we remained so absolutely destitute of everything, that only by some angel bringing us food and placing it in our mouths, could we nourish this living body; because, even if we should find anything, either animals or birds of the forest, we had nothing to kill them with, and, even if they put themselves into our hands for killing, we had no knife nor machete to skin them with, if they were animals, nor anything to cook them with for want of a steel for striking fire. From this it can be inferred that, being wet every day, at least with the dew, besides the showers which caught us, and having to sleep on the bare earth, wherever night came upon us, whether it was wet or dry, we were unable to get any comfort, besides not having any means of making fire."
They Find Some Edible Thistles. "Notwithstanding, the said akalchees were not what exhausted us most, nor were they so unkind to us that amongst them we did not find something to eat and drink; since on some trees there were Chuis, which are like large edible thistles, the leaves of which preserve the water from the dew and rains for a long time, and by tapping them in the stem, the water which they have preserved comes out, although it is dirty and bad smelling; but the thirst we felt was more so. These same plants served us for food, by eating the stems of each leaf, something like two fingers of white that they have, since that part is the most tender, and the rest is very bitter and hard. In the same way we used to find in the said akalchees some roots of trees to gnaw, so that, as the proverb says, 'Afflictions with bread are of less account,' we did not feel the sores which those cutting grasses had caused us, as I have said, in exchange for what we found there of food and drink."
Some Hills are Reached. "These three days of akalchees having passed, there followed three other days of hills and very high ridges, so that we inevitably had to pass them, since they lay in all four directions. These followed one after the other in such a way that, having finished climbing one, we went down it again, without finding an eighth of a mile level below. Upon which we again ascended the next one, for all of these were so high that their heights cannot be told except to say that in their deep valleys the rays of the sun do not penetrate. So weak did we become from ascending these hills on account of the fatigue, as well as by going down, because of the stony ground, or for both reasons, it was necessary to make use of the trees, which cover the hills, the most of which are the said palms called Cumes, full of penetrating thorns, which injured our feet, hands and bodies, since falling from weariness, we were wont to strike against them.
"On the top, then, of one of these hills, we found a broad aguada,--a thing which surprised us much, since there were not any other high places around it, from which the water could come. There were there very many flint stones which caused injury enough to our feet on account of our going barefoot. I do not know to what to attribute that water on that high hill top, since in the preceding ravines, which, for the most part, were rivers, although now dry, water was not found, except to a miracle, by which God gave us to understand that he had not forgotten our needs, since with so much climbing up and down as we had been through, we were thirsty enough, so that God furnished this aguada, from which we had a very good drink. In about an eighth of a mile we came to the descent from this height, after which we passed two days of woods, some that were somewhat level, without so many or so high hills, but it is wonderful that though these forests in which we traveled for two days and the three preceding ones, consist of an infinite number of sapote and ramon trees, we did not find in them all a bit to eat,--a thing which happens in these woods as in the rest that I saw. Seeing their sterility, I said, 'They appeared in every respect like those of Gilboa.'"
Deserted Buildings. "With so few comforts and so great affliction, our strength went on diminishing very quickly, knowing for truth the proverb which the Biscayans, my fellow countrymen, say: 'It is the guts which carry and support the legs and not the legs, the guts.' Among these high hills which we passed over, there is a variety of old buildings, excepting some in which I recognized apartments, and though they were very high and my strength was little, I climbed up them (though with trouble). They were in the form of a convent, with the small cloisters and many living rooms all roofed over, and arched like a wagon and whitened inside with plaster, which is very abundant through that region, since all the ridges are composed of it. So that these buildings do not resemble those which are here in this Province, for the latter are of pure worked stone, laid without mortar, particularly the part which relates to arches; but the former are of rough stone and mortar, covered with plaster."
False Hopes; Further Hardships. "It seemed to us that these buildings stood near a settlement, from the information which the soldiers had given us, when we were going on the new road to Guatemala, but it turned out to be the dream of a blind man, since we found ourselves, as we saw afterwards, very far from a settlement. We traveled through these woods when we came upon a dry river, which we followed a long while to see if we found water, which we came across, though late, which is better than never. Before that, God willed that we should meet a Kamas, or a great mound of earth, which the ants build, in which we found a little honey to eat, and, as every sweet thing at once calls for water, and we were late in finding it, it did not fail to give us trouble. By following the abovementioned river, we came to the said aguada, which was quite large, similar to those which they call Petens. This made us go around through plenty of woods and affliction, so as to get past it."
They Face Starvation. "We passed the said aguada and afterwards some hills, with other rivers, although they were dry, though the hollows in them were a proof of their being very full in the rainy season. The signs were not deceptive, for at a little distance we fell in with a great cibal or pond full of those grasses with broad and cutting leaves, of which I spoke before. This was, according to its distance which was lost to sight, more than two leagues long and half a league broad. Into this discharged the currents of the rivers of which I spoke, and it cost us much trouble to go around it, so as to pass it, changing our course in this, as in the other cases, which I have spoken of, always to the North. In all this time we had nothing to eat, except the little honey that I spoke of, so that the animated mass of bones, owing to the continued troubles of traveling every day and not eating, now kept growing weaker and weaker. In such a great extremity of a man's dying without sickness or infirmity, being in his perfect senses, one can well understand what cries he would utter to God and to his most holy mother, and to all the saints of his prayers, not only intended for his bodily comfort, but in order that he should not die among beasts without the sacraments and in order that God should bring him to die among brothers as a Catholic, and receive the holy sacraments."
A Sign from our Lady of the Apparition. "The affliction which my dying without them among those wild trees caused me, God, on whom my heart called, alone knows. In like manner, there was not a saint of my prayers to whom I did not pray, and even lovingly complained that they should leave me in this way to die in these woods; yet my thinking that, if this should happen, it would probably be the will of God, was what mitigated all my sufferings. Nevertheless among all the Saints I called upon to bring me out to die in a settlement, was our Lady who appeared at Campeche, and scarcely did I call upon her in my mind (for thus were all my pleas) to come to my aid, when at once we saw bent branches of trees, a proof that people had come through those places. From then on I put away the needle in the sleeve of my habit, without taking it out, following the said track wherever it went. I kept on following it for four days through paths as clear as they were different from those we had found. The Indians were troubled when they saw that I was going in a contrary direction and advised me to leave such trails and to go in a westerly direction. I, who alone knew how the said Batche signs appeared on my invoking our Lady of the Apparition, replied to them that they should come along since whoever had showed me that Batche or broken branches (which is a road for Indians) would bring us out to a settlement.