heroic deed cost Olea his own life; and now even, while I am writing this, the figure and powerful build of Christobal de Olea comes fresh to my memory, and my heart feels sore with grief, for we were both born in the same spot, and he was a relative of my relations. I will not, however, relate the further heroic deeds of the marquis del Valle, for they are so numerous and astonishing that I should not so soon get to the end of them. I will now show a few of his peculiarities.
He was excessively fond of gambling at cards and dice, but he never lost his temper in playing, and he delighted in using those quaint expressions customary with gamblers. Nothing could exceed his vigilance during war, and in the night-time he would make the rounds himself, and visit the different outposts. He would visit the hut of every soldier, see that his weapons were ready at hand, and that he had his shoes on. Those whom he found had neglected anything in this way he severely reprimanded, and compared them to mangy sheep whose own wool is too heavy for them. During our expedition to the Honduras, he had a peculiar infirmity about him which I never observed previously, which was, that if he could not get some little nap after dinner he became so ill that he vomited up everything he had eaten. We therefore took the precaution as soon as he had dined to spread a carpet for him beneath some tree or elsewhere in the shade, on which he took a short repose; it mattered not whether it was oppressively hot, or that the rain came down in torrents, it made no difference to him. During the conquest of New Spain he was very thin, and had scarcely any embonpoint; but after our return from the Honduras he became excessively fat and big-bellied. When his beard was beginning to grow grey, he used to dye it black. In New Spain and on his first return to Castile he was uncommonly generous; but on his second return thither in the year 1540, he was considered very miserly, and one of his servants, named Ulloa, actually brought an action against him for non-payment of wages. If we consider his life after the conquest of New Spain, we shall find that it was full of troubles and sorrows. The armaments which he fitted out cost him immense sums of money, from which