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