and were so free from
fright at the men that our soldiers on horseback were able to come up
with them and kill them as they wished. In this way the men killed many
of them and ate them for some days after. The Indian guides, who were
showing the Spaniards everything and all those villages of their people
which had been burned and razed, on being asked why it was that having
so many deer at hand, they permitted them to be so tame. The Indians
replied that in their villages they held the deer to be gods, for their
greatest idol had appeared to them in that form and commanded them not
to kill the deer, nor frighten them. They had executed this command,
and as a result the deer were not easily scared, nor did they flee from
the soldiers, and they were very numerous...."

"Cortes and his men set forth from these villages of the Mazotecas and
from the province of Acalan (which in after years, during the conquest
of the Kingdom of Yucatan, was subjected by Captain Francisco de Tamayo
Pacheco, who had come out in quest of it from the City of Merida)...."

The Army of Cortes Proceeds on its Way. "Once more the army of Cortes
went forward through rough and broken country. As always, he sent
camp-scouts ahead on horseback and single soldiers afoot; these
encountered two Indians from another village further on, who were out
hunting and were carrying a large lion [puma, jaguar?] as well as a
great quantity of iguanas, which are a kind of small serpent and very
good to eat. These Indians led them [the army] to their village, and
from there the army took its road towards the mountains, asking all
whom they met whether they had seen bearded men like them, for they
were seeking them. Some of the Indians who were questioned replied,
saying: That those of whom they spoke were ahead, and were journeying
in the same direction...."

The Lake. "When the army left the place where it had spent the night,
and while it was mounting the slope of the mountains, but a short time
had elapsed when those in the vanguard began to catch glimpses of great
Laguna, in the middle of which was an island with a large town, which,
as was afterwards learned, was the chief place of that whole Province
of Itza. [These were the people who had withdrawn one hundred years
before from Yucatan, as has been said.] And it was possible to enter
this town only by means of boats."

They Capture an Indian. "The camp-scouts had by now reached the shore
of the Lake