our men from this disease. For the rest, every honour was paid to the
last remains of Garay; and Cortes, with several officers, put on
mourning. May his soul rest in peace. Amen! It is, however, to be
regretted that he died far away from his wife and family in the house of
a stranger. After his departure from Mexico pretty work was going on
with his troops in Panuco; for as the officers and soldiers had no
commander-in-chief, any one who got it into his head raised himself to
captain or general, and in this way there stood successively at the head
of the troops, Juan Grijalva, Gonzalo de Figueroa, Alonso de Mendoza,
Lorenzo de Ulloa, Juan Medina, Juan de Villa, Antonio de la Cada, and a
certain Taborda, who was the most rebellious of all. Garay's son, to
whom Cortes' daughter was betrothed, nominally indeed, had the chief
command, but the men troubled themselves very little about him; and they
dispersed themselves in small bodies of fifteen and twenty-five about
the country, plundered the townships, forcibly carried away the women,
and in every respect conducted themselves as if they were plundering
among the Moors. At last the inhabitants were resolved to suffer this no
longer, and they united in a body with the determination to destroy
these cruel invaders, and in the space of a few days they killed upwards
of 500 Spaniards, all of Garay's troops, the most of whom were
sacrificed to their gods and their flesh was devoured. In one township
alone, above one hundred were slaughtered in this way. Cortes' troops in
Santisteban were no longer able to quell these disturbances, nor did the
Indians any way fear them; for when the garrison had upon one occasion
marched out against them, they defended themselves so valiantly that our
troops were obliged to retreat back to the town, to which the Indians
had even the temerity to lay siege, and made repeated attacks upon it
both day and night, and they would certainly have taken it if there had
not been seven or eight of the veteran conquistadores among the
garrison, who, with Vallejo, continually spurred on the rest of the men,
and took every military precaution to prevent so terrible a disaster.
These determined men also lent every assistance they could to the rest
of Garay's troops, but at the same time showed the necessity of their
continuing to encamp outside the town, so as to prevent the enemy from
making a combined attack upon the latter. Three separate engagements
were fough