The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo Vol. 2

1/25/22, 8:50 PM The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo written by himself, containing a true an…
Though Chamula had again submitted to our arms, the townships of Guegustitlan still
obstinately held out, notwithstanding all our kind messages to the caziques; we had,
therefore, no other resource left thanto march against them, and subdue them by force of
arms. Each ofthese townships (for there were three) was strongly situated, and wetherefore
left our allies, with the baggage, in the camp, our captainonly taking the most nimble and
active of the Spanish troops with him,besides 300 warriors of Cinacatan. The distance to
Guegustitlan was sixteen miles; but the enemy had everywhere cut down trees and
constructedbarricades along the line of our march to obstruct the cavalry;however, with the
assistance of our Indian friends, we soon clearedthese obstacles out of our way, and it was
not long before we attackedone of the three townships. The place was well fortified and
filledwith warriors fully equipped for war; we, nevertheless, stormed thetown, although it
was even more difficult of access than Chamula. Theenemy had not waited to offer any
resistance to our arms, and we foundthe town quite deserted by its inhabitants, who had
also carried off alltheir store of provisions; but it was not long before our Indian friends
brought in two of the inhabitants prisoners, whom our captain immediately liberated,
desiring them to go and call their countrymen. Westaid one whole day in this place, during
which time the inhabitants of all three townships submitted themselves as vassals to our
emperor, andpresented us with a small quantity of gold and some quetzal feathers,which
are of great value in this country.
After we had returned to our camp we deliberated whether or not we should follow up
Cortes' instructions, and lay the foundations of atown in this neighbourhood. Many of us
were in favour of doing so,but others, who had lucrative possessions in Guacasualco, were
quiteopposed to it, and said we should have no shoes for the horses; thatthe most of us
were wounded, and we were altogether too small innumbers to think of settling in a country
so thickly populated: besides that, all the townships were strongly situated among steep
mountains, inaccessible to our cavalry. But those who objected most to our founding a
colony here were Luis Marin himself and Diego de Godoy,a very blustering sort of a man,
both of whom felt more inclination toreturn to Guacasualco.
[Pg 192]
I have above spoken of a certain Alonso de Grado, who was a veryturbulent fellow, though
but a poor soldier. This man had managedto procure privately from Cortes a certain grant
by which he was tohave half the gold we should find in Chiapa when we had subjectedthis
township. Grado now produced this document and claimed half of the gold found in the
temples of this place, and of that which wehad obtained from the inhabitants, altogether
valued at about 15,000pesos; but our captain maintained that, out of this gold, the value of
the horses was to be deducted which had been killed in our recent campaign.This, added to
other circumstances, gave rise to high wordsbetween the two, and Grado frequently made
use of unbecoming expressions during the dispute; and the secretary Godoy, to make
mattersworse, now also put in his word, and things at length came tosuch a pass that Luis
Marin lost all patience, and threw both thesegentlemen into chains. After they had been in
prison for about eight days, our captain sent Grado on his parole to Mexico, and also
released Godoy, who had shown full contrition for his past behaviour. This was very
impolitic on the part of Luis Marin as far as regarded himself,for Grado and Godoy now
concocted measures together, and thelatter wrote a letter to Cortes, in which he scandalized
our captain inevery possible manner. Alonso de Grado also requested me to drawup a letter
to Cortes, in which he wished me to exculpate him in thisaffair, for he had been assured by
Godoy that Cortes would believe me.I willingly complied with his request, and drew up a
faithful account of the whole matter, but stated that no blame could be attached to Luis
Marin. With these letters Grado set out for Mexico, after our captainhad made him promise
on oath to appear before Cortes within thespace of eight days; for the distance from this
place to Mexico by theroad we had marched was 760 miles.
Our next step was to march to Cimatan, in order to punish its inhabitants,who, it will be
remembered, killed two Spaniards on the occasionwhen Francisco Martin and myself so
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