hen to the said
town, Nich, whose cacique is called Ahtul, and this little town is the
chief town of Cha Kan Ytza, which consists of other very small towns,
but of many settlements, and each of these possesses a cacique or
captain, although all the Cha Kan Ytzaes, with their wives and
children, as far as I saw, will be about six hundred souls, more or
less."

Indians Arrive from Tayasal. "We ate very heartily in the said town,
for the sake of giving them pleasure, so that they showed that they
were pleased and they entertained us with their instruments from twelve
o'clock of the day that we arrived till two o'clock in the afternoon,
when, in answer to the previous messenger which I sent to the petty
King of my coming to his territory, there came up some eighty canoes,
full of Indians, painted and dressed for war, with very large quivers
of arrows, though all were left in the canoes,--all the canoes
escorting and accompanying the petty King, who with about five hundred
Indians came forward to receive us. They hurried us on board with great
speed and with very rude actions, without taking notice of the music of
the clarions with which we awaited him, nor of the peace, which as its
messengers I brought him in the name of the King, our Lord. Nor on our
part, could we fulfill our embassy, since, without giving us an
opportunity to do so, they began suddenly to take us across the lake
(which in that part probably is three leagues in distance across).[9.2]
In a small bay on its shore, a nephew of the King, whom I had rewarded
with some Spanish trinkets, coveting the image of a Santo Christo,
which I wore on my neck, and which I had refused to give him on two
occasions when he had asked me for it, on my giving a cutlass with its
blade to the petty King, his uncle, seized the hand of his uncle with
excessive insolence, and snatching the blade from its sheath, turned it
to my breast, and passing the blade across my throat, cut the string
with one blow and took the image of Christ from me. I reproached him
for his improper act and what he said to me was, 'Well, if you have not
wished to give it to me, what am I to do?', by which it is plainly seen
that if one does not give them what they see and ask for, the life of
him who should refuse it is at risk from moment to moment. On seeing
this the King, his uncle, laughed at it, instead of reproving him, and
he began with more vanity and pride than a Lucifer, to say to me many
thing