fter, and that the name of
Cortes stood in equal renown throughout the whole of Spain at that time
as in the Roman period the names of Julius Caesar and of Pompey; and in
the Carthaginian as that of Hannibal; or, in the earlier part of our
history, the name of the valiant and invincible knight Diego Garcia de
Paredes; or, in more recent times, the name of Gonzalo Hernandez,
surnamed the Great Captain.

I must also not forget to mention that, about this time, the treasurer
Alonso de Estrada married one of his two daughters to Jorge de Alvarado,
and the other to Don Luis de Guzman, son of Don Juan de Saavedra, earl
of Castellar. During the preliminaries of the marriage it was likewise
settled that Pedro de Alvarado should repair in person to Spain in order
to obtain from his majesty the appointment of governor of Guatimala for
himself, and that, during his absence, his brother Jorge was to take the
chief command of this province, and to continue to subdue the hostile
tribes. The latter officer, indeed, immediately made preparations for
this purpose, and took along with him two hundred Indian auxiliaries
from Tlascalla, Mexico, and other provinces.

Marcos de Aguilar at the same time despatched a cavalier named Don Juan
Enriquez de Guzman, a near relation of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, into
the province of Chiapa to found a colony there. A similar expedition
Aguilar sent out under the command of Baltasar Osorio, a nobleman of
Seville, to the province of Tabasco. A third expedition he sent out
under the command of Alonso Herrera, one of Cortes' soldiers, to subdue
the Zapotecs, who inhabit almost inaccessible mountains. I will relate
how far these several officers succeeded, in a subsequent page. I must
now speak of the speedy termination of Aguilar's government.

CHAPTER CXCIV.

_Marcos de Aguilar dies, and in his will appoints the treasurer
Alonso de Estrada governor; and of other matters._

I have already stated, in the former chapter, that Marcos de Aguilar was
in a miserable state of ill health, yet the physicians contrived to keep
him alive for the space of eight months by means of goats' milk and
other nourishing food; but, in addition to his other diseases, he was at
length attacked by a malignant fever, which soon put an end to all his
miseries. By his will he appointed Alonso de Estrada his sole successor
in the government, with the same restrictions as he himself had received
from Ponce de Le