natives were no match for the invaders, though they succeeded in wounding several of them with the darts and the flint-edged wooden swords which they carried. De Cordova took to his boats again with his men, and, keeping in sight of land, went north and landed in Campeachy. The people here, though more civil than their neighbors down the coast, were no better pleased to see the strangers.
Here were well-built temples of stone. The priests, in long white garments, came with censers full of burning coals in their hands. On these they dropped sweet-scented gums, and swung them before their visitors to perfume the air. Others had bundles of dried reeds, which they laid in order on the ground and set on fire, motioning that if their visitors did not go back to their vessels before those reeds were burned up it would be worse for them. They stood silently about the little fire, waiting with folded hands the departure of the intruders. This gentle hint was taken, or there would have been another battle—as there was not long afterward, when De Cordova landed at a large village called Potonchan. There were farmers living in large, substantial stone houses surrounded by cornfields. The Spaniards stopped here to fill their water-casks at a spring, when the natives attacked them, killing forty-seven, wounding others and taking five prisoners. Five of De Cordova's men died on board ship, and he himself lived but a few days after his return to Cuba. This expedition brought back a good report of the country. De Cordova had kidnapped two of the young men of Yucatan, clad in their native costume. Nothing interested his Spanish neighbors, however, so much as the ornaments of wrought gold which these savages wore.
