Now Champoton, applied to river and town. Ribero writes camrõ; Hood, Champoto; Mercator, Chapãton, and town next north, Maranga. Potonchan, in the aboriginal tongue, signifies, ‘Stinking Place.’ Mercator has also the town of Potõchan, west of Tabasco River. West-Indische Spieghel, Patõcham. Laet, Ogilby, and Jefferys follow with Champoton in the usual variations. ‘Y llegaron á otra provincia,’ says Oviedo, i. 498, ‘que los indios llaman Aguanil, y el principal pueblo della se dice Moscoba, y el rey ó caçique de aquel señorio se llama Chiapoton;’ and thus the author of De Rebus Gestis Ferdinandi Cortesii, ‘Nec diu navigaverant, cùm Mochocobocum perveniunt.’ Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., 340.

Pinzon and Solis must have found alligators in their northward cruise, otherwise Peter Martyr could not honestly lay down on his map of India beyond the Ganges, in 1510, the baya d’ lagartos north of guanase. Mariners must have given the coast a bad name, for directly north of the R. de la of Colon, the R:. de laḡ r̄ tos of Ribero, the R:. de lagarts of Vaz Dourado, and the R. de Lagartos of Hood, are placed some reefs by all these chart-makers, and to which they give the name Alacranes, Scorpions. The next name west of Lagartos on Map No. x., Munich Atlas, is costanisa, and on No. xiii. Ostanca. Again next west, on both, is Medanos. On No. x., next to costa nisa, and on No. xiii., west of Punta de las Arenas, is the name Ancones. Ogilby gives here B. de Conil, and in the interior south, a town Conil; east of R. de Lagartos is also the town Quyo, and in large letters the name Chuaca.