old age, "people to this day speak of the bridges of Cortés as they speak of the Pillars of Hercules." We can trace the line of march with something like accuracy through the province of Copilco to Zaguatan, where the Rio Grijalva was crossed, and thence on to Chilapa and Tepititan on the Rio Tulija. From Tepititan to Ciguatecpan on the Usumacinta the actual route is obscure, as Cortés and his followers were for some days lost in the forest, but there can be little doubt that Ciguatecpan (a name which is not to be found on the maps) was a town on the banks of the Rio Usumacinta in the near neighbourhood of Tenosique. A line drawn from Tepititan to Tenosique is between fifty and sixty miles in length, and in passing from one place to the other, Cortés must have passed within twenty miles of Palenque, yet, although he and his men were half starved, and were eagerly seeking for any trace of a track which would lead them to an Indian settlement, nothing was seen of Palenque and no track was crossed which might have led to it. Arrived at Ciguatecpan, Cortés asked the Indians to direct him to Acalá, which was probably the next place of importance marked on his map of the country drawn on a cloth, with which he had been furnished by the natives of Guacacualcos; and on this request a great discussion arose, some saying that his best way lay through the villages up the river, others saying that that route was by far the longest and passed through difficult and uninhabited country, and that the nearest way was to cross the River Usumacinta at Ciguatecpan and follow a small track to Acalá much used by pedlars. This last counsel was followed, and it was probably the better of the two. Had Cortés continued his journey up the course of the river he must have passed Piedras Negras and Menché, both the sites of important ruins, which could hardly have been living cities at that time without some report of their existence having come to his ears or those of his numerous Indian followers. The position of the chief town of the Province of Acalá has never been determined, but it may with some confidence be placed on the upper waters of the Rio San Pedro. Cortés says that the whole province was thickly peopled and of considerable commercial importance; the historian Villagutierre tells us that a few years later the province was brought into subjection by an expedition from Merida under the leadership of Don Francisco Tamayo Pacheco, but that the Spaniards were soon driven out again by the Lacandones and other wild forest tribes. No accouut of Pacheco's expedition has come to light and Acalá is no more mentioned. From Acalá Cortés marched through a thinly peopled country to the Lake of Peten and visited the island of Tayasal, the modern Flores, which was then the chief town of the warlike Itzáes, where he was well received by the chief and people. In his letter to Philip II. of Spain, Cortés says: "At this
