78 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



of the feast of Barnaby the apostle, an immense 

 body, varying, according to manuscript accounts, 

 from forty to seventy thousand, came down upon the 

 small band of a little more than two hundred then 

 in Tihoo. The following day they attacked the 

 Spanish camp on all sides. The most terrible battle 

 the Spaniards had ever encountered ensued. " Di- 

 vine power," says the pious historian, " works more 

 than human valour. What were so few Catholics 

 against so many infidels V The battle lasted the 

 greater part of the day. Many Indians were killed, 

 but immediately others took their places, for they 

 were so many that they were like the leaves on the 

 trees. The arquebuses and crossbows made great 

 havoc, and the horsemen carried destruction wher- 

 ever they moved, cutting down the fugitives, tram- 

 pling under foot the wounded and dying. Piles of 

 dead bodies stopped the Spaniards in their pursuit. 

 The Indians were completely routed, and for a great 

 distance the ground was covered with their dead. 



The fame of the Spaniards rose higher than be- 

 fore, and the Indians never rallied again for a gen- 

 eral battle. All this year the invaders were occu- 

 pied in drawing to them and conciliating the neigh- 

 bouring caciques, and on the sixth of January, 1542, 

 they founded, with all legal formalities, on the site 

 of the Indian town of Tihoo, the " very loyal and 

 noble" city of Merida. 



Here I shall leave them ; and I make no apolo- 

 gy for presenting this history. It was forty years 



