some boundaries with Alvarado. The whole of our troops, and the two officers of Arias, remained three days in Choluteca, from which place Alvarado despatched a certain Gaspar Arias de Avila, who had settled in Guatimala, to the governor Arias, as we understood, respecting the preliminaries of a marriage, which is indeed most likely, as Gaspar Arias was a great adherer to Alvarado.
On the fourth day we left Choluteca, and continued our march to the province of Guatimala, but before we could reach the territory of Cuzcatlan, through which our route immediately lay, the rainy season set in, and we found the river Lempa so greatly swollen, that it seemed an impossibility for us ever to cross it. The only resource we had left was to fell a ceiba tree of very large dimensions, of which we hollowed out a canoe of such magnitude, that nothing was ever seen equal to it in this country before. Even then it took us five whole days before we had all passed across, during which time we suffered dreadfully from hunger, as we had not a grain of maise left.
After we had passed the river, we came to the townships of Chapanastec, where the inhabitants killed one of our men, named Nicuesa, and wounded three others. These men had gone out in search of provisions, and were attacked before we could come up to their assistance. As we did not wish to be detained any longer, we would not give ourselves the trouble of chastising the inhabitants for their murderous attack. This took place in that province where at present the town of San Miguel is built. From this place we came into the territory of Cuzcatlan, the inhabitants of which we found very hostilely inclined towards us; nevertheless, we had plenty of provisions; and we now came into some townships in the neighbourhood of Petapa, where the Guatimaltecs were lying in wait for us, in deep hollows, between steep rocks. It took us three days before we could succeed in forcing this passage. Here I was slightly wounded by an arrow.