DESCRIPTION OF COPAN BY FUENTES Y GUZMAN. 545 
be avenged, and, as is usual in such cases, his vengeance was far-reaching, not only 
upon his enemy but upon his country. He passed to the camp of Chaves, and 
informed him how he could take the fortress, for the moat was not of equal depth 
in its construction at all points, and so he showed him which were the points by 
which access might be gained. 
With this information, on the next day Chaves marched against the enemy 
fortifications, which he found well garrisoned with soldiers armed with lances of 
copper and obsidian stone (chay), besides their usual weapons of darts, hardened 
spears, and slings; these, on seeing the Spanish troops approach, raised a terrible 
noise with their drums and trumpets of shells, and with shouts and frightful cries. 
On arriving at a convenient distance from the moat and trench, Chaves sent 
forward a company of infantry under the command of Alonso de Murga, after 
whom followed Garcia de Aguilar and the no less daring Miguel Quinteros. But 
Murga had no sooner moved against the trenches than he received a severe wound, 
which did not, however, cause him to desist. 
The Copanecos resisted with admirable fortitude, so that our soldiers could 
not gain a foothold in the trenches; these they held like statues in their places 
(Fuentes, vol. 11, p. 134). In this crisis Chaves, who was surveying the moat 
between the two forces, sent Isidro de Mayorga with some soldiers to the aid of 
those fighting, and then after his reconnaissance sent in the rest of the infantry and 
the cavalry; in these troops Gonzalo Lépez, Diego Camargo, Bartolome Garrido, Luis 
Melendez, and Crist6éval Marin distinguished themselves by their spirit, not to 
leave the field without taking the trench. In this attempt it came on that the com- 
bat became general and more bitter than at any time before. (Fuentes, vol. 11, 
chap. 2, p. 134). All the forces of Copan Calel hurled themselves on the invaders, 
who in their turn seemed like immovable mountains in the moat, since they could 
not advance and were resolved not to yield ground. Meanwhile the Cacique Copan 
Calel visited all the points attacked, exhorting his men to their defense, and that 
they should die rather than give way to their opponents. Then action here became, 
one might say, individual, for every man sought an enemy to engage. (Fuentes, 
vol. 11, p. 134.) The Conquistadores made various efforts to take the trench. The 
horsemen threw themselves to the ground and opposed their iron armor and swords 
of steel to the lances, masses, and arms of the enemy; but all was in vain, for the 
invaders fell, thrown from the trench into the moat, and this grew filled with the 
spoils of the dead. The besieged replaced their losses, the living taking the places 
of those killed, and so presenting the same front to the invaders. All was horror 
in this theater of death. The besiegers and the besieged fell together into the same 
ditch, the one and the other suffered the same fate, and fell to their own graves. 
In this state of things, Juan Vasquez de Osuna, covered with mud and with 
the blood that now almost filled the moat, remounted his horse and like a furious 
tiger threw himself upon the intrenchment with the mind to be cut to pieces. The 
horse by his weight overthrew a great portion of the palisade, and burst into the 
midst of the fight and of a great multitude of Indians, who under the surprise gave 
him passage. There he sustained a combat as unequal as it was desperate against 
the multitude of the Indians, who hampered themselves with their arms, and by 
their very fury to kill him. Behind Vasquez de Osuna then followed 12 other 
horsemen, stimulated by his example, carrying terror and dismay with them among 
the ranks of the Indians. These the Conquistadores did not permit to recover them- 
selves, but threw themselves with yet greater impetus upon the defenders of the 
fortress, among whom they made huge slaughter. 
Meanwhile the General Copan Calel was re-enforcing his people, present in 
person at the points of greatest pressure by the Spaniards. When he saw at last 
