[Footnote 188: There is some ambiguity in the text, from which it is difficult to ascertain whether the left and right hand of their general line of march is now to be respectively considered as south and north, or the contrary. But as coupled with their intended return towards the great river, now to the east, the left means probably the north, and the right the south.--E.]

[Footnote 189: Though not mentioned in the text, it is not improbable that Gallego had formerly placed considerable dependence on the use of holy oil, or chrysm. The whole secret of his surgery seems to have consisted in the application of bland oils, and leaving nature to operate, without the employment of the ancient barbarous methods of cure, by tents, escharotics, cautery, and heating inflammatory applications; which in modern times, abandoned by surgeons, have been adopted by farriers.--E.]

After leaving the territories of the cow-herds, the Spaniards marched for twenty days through the lands of other tribes. Being of opinion that they had declined too much from, the direction of Guachacoya, to which place they now proposed returning, the Spaniards now directed their course eastwards, still inclining somewhat towards the north, so that in this way they crossed the direction they had formerly gone in their march from Auche to the country of the cow-herds, yet without perceiving it. When at length they reached the great river, it was the middle of September, having travelled three months from leaving Guachacoya; and though they had fought no pitched battle during all that time, they were never free from alarm night or day, so that they had lost forty soldiers during this last useless and circuitous march. The Indians on every opportunity shot all who happened to stray from the main body, and would often crawl on all fours at night into their quarters, shoot their arrows, and make their escape, unseen by the centinels. To add to their distresses, the winter now began to set in, with much rain, snow and excessive cold weather. On coming to where they proposed quartering for the night, though wet, cold, weary and hungry, they were obliged to send parties in advance to secure them, generally, by force, and after all were mostly under the necessity of procuring provisions by means of their swords. Besides all this, they were often forced to construct rafts or floats on which to pass rivers, which sometimes occupied them five or six days. The horsemen were frequently obliged to pass the night on horseback, and the infantry to stand up to their knees in mire and water, with hardly any clothes to cover them, and such as they had always wet. Owing to these accumulated hardships, many of the Spaniards and their Indian attendants fell sick, and the distemper proceeded to the horses, so that sometimes four or five men and horses died in a day, and sometimes seven, whom they scarcely had leisure to bury for haste in pursuing their march.

In this miserable condition they came to the great river about the latter end of November[190]. In their march on the west side of the great river, from leaving the territory of Guachacoya to their arrival at their new winter quarters, they had marched by estimation 350 leagues, and lost 100 men and 80 horses by the way, without counting their Indian servants, who were of vast use. This was the only fruit of their long and painful march westwards in quest of New Spain, and of refusing to follow the plan which had been devised by their late general for descending the great river to the sea. At this period they were much gratified by finding two contiguous towns on the great river of 200 houses each, which were enclosed by a wet ditch drawn from the river. They were now reduced to 320 foot and 70 horse, or 390 in all, who now remained of 900 men and 330 horses which had landed in the bay of Espiritu Santo at the end of May 1539, four years and a half before. Yet inured to hardships and accustomed to conquer, they immediately attacked and gained possession of these towns, from which the inhabitants fled, having heard of the irresistible valour of the Spaniards from other tribes. They had the good fortune to find plenty of provisions in these towns, and to remain undisturbed by the Indians, so that they soon recovered from their fatigues; yet several died in consequence of their past sufferings, and among the rest Juan Ortiz, their chief interpreter and an excellent soldier.

[Footnote 190: They were already said to have reached it in the middle of September. The discrepancy may either be an oversight of Herrera; or they took from the middle of September to the end of November, in descending the right bank of the great river to where they passed the winter, having come to it much higher up than they intended.--E.]

Having determined to take up their quarters at this place, they fortified one of the towns to serve as quarters for the winter. This province, called Aminoya, lay seventeen leagues farther up the river than Guachacoya, to which they had endeavoured to direct their course on returning from the province of Los Vaqueros. Being somewhat recovered towards the end of January 1543, they set to work to cut down and prepare timber for building their brigantines. At this place, an old Indian, who had been unable to make his escape along with the rest, objected to their staying in their present quarters for the winter, saying that the river was in use to overflow every fourteen years, and that this was the expected season of its doing so. They refused however to profit by this information, of which they had sufficient reason to repent in the sequel. The return of the Spaniards to the great river was soon known in all the neighbouring districts. Upon which the cacique of Anilco, to prevent them from favouring the Guachacoyans as formerly, sent an embassy to Alvarado, offering his friendship and making mighty promises. The ambassador sent upon this occasion by Anilco was his Apu or lieutenant-general, who brought great abundance of fruit and other things to the Spaniards, and 200 Indian, servants to attend upon them and supply their wants. Having delivered his message, the Apu sent back the answer to the cacique, and remained with the Spaniards. The cacique of Guachacoya came likewise to wait upon the Spanish general, with a great present, to confirm the former friendship, and though he saw the lieutenant of his enemy among the Spaniards, he took no notice of the circumstance. On consultation about the brigantines, it was found that it would require seven of them to accommodate all the people; and the timber being all hewed and ready, the work was begun in earnest, and occupied their utmost diligence all the months of February, March and April 1543, during all which time they were amply supplied with all necessaries by Anilco, who even furnished them with blankets and mantles to defend themselves from the cold. These articles of clothing were manufactured by the Indians from an herb resembling mallows, which has fibres like those of flax; and the dresses which are made of this substance are afterwards dyed according to their fancies. On the present occasion, the Spaniards reserved the new blankets and mantles furnished by Anilco for sails to their brigantines, and broke up those which were old and useless to serve as oakum for caulking their vessels. Of the same materials the Spaniards made all kinds of cordage for their brigantines, from the smallest ropes up to cables; and in every thing the cacique Anilco, to whom they had formerly done so much injury, assisted the Spaniards to the utmost of his power, while Guachacoya was exceedingly dissatisfied at seeing the intimacy between them.

On the other side of the river there lay a large and fertile province called Quiqualtanqui, the cacique of which was a haughty warlike youth, who believed that although the Spaniards were now building vessels to convey them out of the country, they might yet return in greater numbers to enslave the natives. For this reason he determined to destroy them, and assembled forces from all parts of the country, both those of his, own tribe and from all the tribes around. Having concluded an extensive confederacy and begun his preparations for war, he sent a friendly message to Alvarado to lull him into security, advising all his confederates to do the same. The general gave them all favourable answers, yet kept himself carefully on his guard. Quiqualtanqui invited Anilco to join in the confederacy, instead of which he gave notice of it to the Spaniards. It was not known how Guachacoya stood affected on this occasion, but he was suspected of having hostile intentions, as he made no communication of the conspiracy. The confederates continued to send frequent messages and presents to the Spaniards to discover what they were doing; and though repeatedly warned not to come to their quarters under night they took no notice of it. One night that Gonzalo Silvestre happened to stand centinel in the second watch, the moon shining very bright, he observed two armed Indians in their plumes of feathers, passing over the ditch on a tree that lay across instead of a bridge. These men came to a postern which they entered without asking leave, on which Silvestre gave one of them a cut on the forehead, on which he immediately fled. The other Indian, without waiting for his wounded companion, got into the canoe on the river and gave the alarm to his party. The wounded man, missing the tree across the ditch, swam over and cried out for assistance when he came to the river, on which some of his friends came and carried him off. At sunrise, Quiqualtanqui sent four messengers demanding that Alvarado should punish the centinel for having been guilty of a breach of the peace, more especially, as the wounded man was a chief. Four other messengers arrived at mid-day on a similar errand, saying that the wounded chief was at the point of death; and four more came in the afternoon affirming that he was dead, and insisted that the centinel should be publicly punished, since the action he had committed was an affront to all the Indians of the confederacy. Alvarado boldly answered, that they had been previously and repeatedly warned never to come to the Spanish quarters under night, being always welcome and honourably treated through the day. He added that though sincerely sorry for what had happened, he could not possibly punish the centinel who had only done his duty according to military discipline, neither would his soldiers allow of any such thing being done. The confederates thought fit to connive at this transaction, satisfied that Alvarado was a man of invincible courage and wise conduct; yet resolved upon executing their design against the Spaniards as soon as possible.

Being eager to get away from the country, the Spaniards laboured indefatigably in fitting out the vessels, even the best gentlemen among them using the utmost diligence; while those who were not handy in the several occupations about the brigantines employed themselves in hunting and fishing to procure provisions for the rest. Among other fish taken on the present occasion, one was taken by means of a hook of such enormous dimensions, that the head alone weighed forty pounds. The confederate Indians under Quiqualtanqui continued their warlike preparations, being much encouraged by knowing that Ferdinand de Soto was dead, that the number of the Spaniards was very much diminished, and that very few horses were left. So confident were they of success, that two of their spies desired some of the Indian women who served the Spaniards to be patient, for they would soon be freed from their bondage to these vagabond robbers, as they were all to be slain. But the women disclosed this to their masters. When the night happened to be very still, the noise of many people could be heard from the opposite side of the river; and the Spaniards could distinctly see numerous fires at regular distances, as of the quarters of a large army. But it pleased God to confound the evil designs of these Indians, by an inundation of the river, which began on the 10th of March 1543, and increased with prodigious rapidity, so that on the 18th which was Palm Sunday, when the Spaniards were in procession, for they observed all the religious solemnities, the water broke in at the gates of the town, and there was no going along the streets for long after but in canoes. This inundation was forty days of rising to its greatest height, which was on the 20th of April, at which time it extended above twenty leagues on each side of the river, so that nothing could be seen in all the country around but the tops of the trees, and the people had to go every where in canoes.

During the time of this terrible inundation, Alvarado sent twenty Spaniards to Anilco to request a supply of rosin, blankets, and cordage for completing the equipment of the vessels, and these men were sent in four canoes lashed two and two together, to prevent them from being overset by the trees which were under water. On coming to the town of Anilco, they found it destroyed, though twenty leagues from the Spanish quarters, and the inundation had extended five leagues farther. Gonzado Silvestre who commanded these Spaniards was greatly in favour of the cacique Anilco, because he had restored to him a youth who had accompanied the Spaniards on their march to the westwards, who perfectly understood the Spanish language, and was so much attached to the Spaniards as to be very averse from returning to his father. On this occasion Anilco supplied Silvestre with every thing of which he was in want.

It pleased God that the water began to subside towards the latter end of April; yet so slowly that on the 10th of May there was no going about the streets of the town on account of the deep mire with which they were filled. This was the more distressing to the Spaniards as they were barefooted, all their shoes having been burnt at Mavila, and the shoes they had since been able to make, being of untanned leather, were like so much tripe as soon as wet. At the latter end of May, the great river returned to its usual channel, and the confederated Indians again drew their forces together to execute their original design against the Spaniards, of which they received intelligence from Anilco; who likewise informed Alvarado of the signals which had been concerted by the confederates for the better prosecution of their enterprise, and even offered to assist the Spaniards with 8000 well armed warriors, and that if they chose to retire into his country the confederates would not dare to attack them. Alvarado returned thanks for these friendly offers, but declined accepting them; because as he intended to go down the river and to quit the country, he did not deem it proper either to take refuge in the territory of Anilco or to accept the assistance of his warriors, as either of those might draw upon him the confederated hostility of his neighbours: But he promised, if it should please God ever to put it in his power, Anilco should not have cause to repent the service he had been of to the king of Spain, or the kindness he had shewn to the Spaniards. In conclusion, he recommended to Anilco to discontinue any farther intercourse with him, lest he might give umbrage to the confederated caciques. Many of the Spaniards were so puffed up by the friendly offers of Anilco, that they endeavoured to persuade Alvarado to accept the proferred aid, and prosecute an offensive war, thinking it easy to subdue these people. But Alvarado was quite sensible of his present weakness, and determined to leave the country as soon as possible; besides which he did not deem it prudent to confide too much on the fidelity of Anilco.