The next township we came to was likewise deserted by its inhabitants; but in this neighbourhood the enemy had thrown up a very formidable entrenchment, with a palisade of uncommon strength, supplied with loop-holes. Here we had scarcely rested a quarter of an hour when the enemy came suddenly pouring forth into the town from all sides, and fell upon us with so much intrepidity that they killed one of our men and two horses, and it was with the utmost difficulty we could succeed in driving them back again.
Our friend Rangel suffered greatly from the wounds he had received on his head; besides which he was tormented by the moschitoes and a large species of bat which bite people and suck their blood, so that he could get no rest day or night; and as it rained without intermission, he, with several of the men who had recently arrived from Spain, grew heartily sick of this mode of warfare; these soldiers brought forcibly to his mind the bad state of his health, the little advantage we had gained by the three several battles we had fought with the enemy, and how we had lost eleven horses and two men, besides that numbers were wounded, and that it would be impossible to accomplish anything more in a country so full of swamps and morasses. All this Rangel listened to with secret delight, for to turn back was the very thing he so ardently desired himself; however, in order to save appearances, and that it might seem as if his determination of marching back to Guacasualco was upon the advice and at the request of the troops themselves, he called a council of war, for which he selected those only whom he well knew would be of the same opinion with himself. I, with twenty of the men, just at that moment returned from a short excursion to some cacao plantations in the neighbourhood to try if we could not capture a few of the natives, and we had the good luck to bring in three females and two men prisoners. When I arrived in Rangel's quarters, he took me aside; he spoke a good deal about the terrible wounds on his head, and assured me that the greater part of the troops had advised him to relinquish the expedition and return to Cortes in Mexico.