dressed with fat taken from dead
Indians[4-1] (!) he sent out three detachments on foot to reconnoitre.

After marching a distance which is not stated, but which could not have
been many miles, they came to an extensive plain covered with maize
fields, temples and houses. This was Cintla. There were many warriors
gathered there, and after a sharp skirmish the Spaniards fell back.

Having thus learned the ground, Cortes prepared for a decisive battle,
as also did the natives. The latter gathered at Cintla in five divisions
of eight thousand men each, as the chroniclers aver.

Cortes had about five hundred men including some Cuban Indians. The main
detachment proceeded on foot by the high road, the cavalry along a path
in the woods, and another detachment by a third route. The country was
swampy and cut with canals, offering serious obstacles to the horses. It
was not until the infantry had been for some time closely engaged with
the enemy on the plain of Cintla, and rather severely handled, that the
cavalry reached the spot. Their appearance, together with the noise and
fatal effect of the musketry, soon struck terror to the hearts of the
natives--their ranks broke and they fled. Gomara estimates that there
were about three hundred of them killed, which is likely enough; while
Bishop De las Casas puts the slain at thirty thousand![5-1]

Such was the battle of Cintla. It broke the spirits of the natives, and
soon their chieftain, named Tabasco, from whom the river and the
province were later called, came in, and offered his submission. Cortes
took possession of the land in the name of the King of Spain, and
erected a large cross in the chief temple of Potonchan. He remained
there several days longer before proceeding on his voyage.

_The Name Cintla._--Of the contemporary authorities, only two give the
name of the place at or near which the battle was fought.

One of these is Bernal Diaz, who writes it twice, spelling it both times
_Cintia_.[5-2] The other is Gomara, who gives _Cintla_, the form which I
believe to be correct. Through following some less reliable authorities
a number of writers, among them Prescott and his editor Mr. J. F. Kirk,
Orozco y Berra, etc., and their copyists, have deformed this word into
_Ceutla_.

The most obvious derivation of Cintla is from the Nahuatl language, in
which _Cintla_ means a dried ear of maize; _Cintlan_, a place where
dried ears are, a cornfield. Most of the places in Taba