How Cortes embarks, with the soldiers who accompanied him on this expedition, and with all the inhabitants of Buena Vista, for Puerto de Caballos, where he founds a colony, to which he gives the name of Natividad.
Our general, considering the spot where Avila had built the town of Buena Vista every way unfavorable for a colony, embarked, with the whole of the inhabitants, in two vessels and the brigantine, and set sail for the bay of Puerto de Caballos, where he arrived in the space of eight days. Finding that there was an excellent harbour in this bay, and having learnt from the Indians that there were numerous townships round about, he determined to found a colony in this place, to which he gave the name of Natividad, and appointed Diego de Godoy commandant of the town. He then made an excursion into the interior of the country to visit the several townships, but which, at the present day, are all destroyed. The inhabitants assured him that there were several other townships in the neighbourhood, and that Naco itself was not far off. He well stocked the new town with provisions, and wrote word to Sandoval, whom he imagined had already reached Naco, to send him ten of the men of Guacasualco, without whom, he particularly remarked in his letter, no undertaking could well succeed. From this place, he added, it was his intention to repair to the bay of Honduras, in order to visit the new town of Truxillo; and concluded by saying he was to continue the conquest of the country, and to leave a settlement in some advantageous place. Sandoval received this letter in the township where we had first halted, for we had not yet broken up our quarters for Naco. At present, therefore, we will leave Cortes in Puerto de Caballos, where, as we understood, the inhabitants were so dreadfully tormented night and day by innumerable moschitoes that every comfort was destroyed.