d
health of your Graces, to whose service I offer humbly my own health,
asking our Lord to keep you many years, as I wish. In the Town of Great
Saint Paul of Peten Ytza, on the sixteenth of January, 1696. I kiss the
hand of your Graces. Your most humble servant and chaplain,--Fray
Andres de Avendano, Apostolic Missionary Commissioner...." There
follows the certification of this letter by the Apostolic Notary.

"... With this I delivered the letter to the King in the presence of
many chiefs and the greater part of the common people, so that all were
satisfied with such an agreement, and agreeing moreover, they with me
and I with them, that within the said four months, I should come back
to see them."

Before Leaving Tayasal, Avendano Shames Covoh. "Finding ourselves now
very near our departure, I notice how, after the last disturbance above
referred to, although it is true that the sermon that I preached to
them calmed their spirits, nevertheless the devil did not fail to sow
tares in the hearts of the Cacique Covoh, whom I have spoken of many
times, and in another cacique named Ahcan, a relation of the King of
Peten, and in the Captain Covoh, with all his followers, all of whom
are Cha Kan Ytzaes, noting here that the first settlement which I met
with on my entering the land of the said Cha Kan Ytzaes, was that of
the said Cacique Ahcan and his Captain Covoh, to whom I showed (as I
said at the beginning of my said entrance) what I was bringing for the
King of Peten Itza; and these were the men who took away from us all
that we carried at the time of our embarking on the lake. These men I
did not fail to put to shame in Peten, before the King and the rest of
the chiefs, not complaining of what they had taken from us, from the
poor supply of the priests and of the four Indian singers, who carried
their change of clothes with them, but my regret was that they had
stolen the entire suit of clothes, with its _sombrero_ and _baton_
which the Governor had given me to give to the King in his name. This I
scolded them for in earnest, asking them: 'What sort of way that was to
receive a messenger, taking away from him all that he had brought,
instead of giving a very kind reception?' This, with other effective
reasons, I repeated on various occasions, until the clothes appeared,
so that I myself clothed the King with them."

The Hatred of the Chakan Itzas for the Padres Increases. "The said
Chakanytzaes then, abashed that