Meanwhile the new President of Guatemala, Escals, was taking all possible precautions for the furtherance of the design. His division of the expedition, of which Fray Agustín Cano was a part, left Guatemala in January, 1696. There is no need to tell again what happened, as Cano has already told us all up to a certain point.
Zuviaur Goes to the Lake. The early weeks of 1696, then, were spent by Avendaño and the men of Yucatan in Peten and in the wilderness between it and Tipu, to which the Padres were enabled to flee by Canek, who knew well the plots that were being hatched against them by Covoh and by Canek's wife.
Shortly after Avendaño reached Merida and made his report, Ursua dispatched Captain Don Pedro de Zuviaur with seventy men, enough Indians, and Padre Juan San Buenaventura to the lake by way of the route so lately followed by Avendaño. The Itzas received them armed for war. Padre San Buenaventura, however, partly calmed them by smooth words; fighting did not, however, entirely cease, and before long Zuviaur returned to the royal camp. At about the same time an Indian messenger arrived from Hariza, who was in the neighborhood of Tipu, with the information that the Franciscans who were administering the villages along the road were meeting with a fair measure of success, and that the Itzas were the only remaining obstacle to the completion of the undertaking. Hourly they became more threatening and more dangerous. Several skirmishes took place between them and the men of Paredes. Finally, forced by lack of supplies, Paredes withdrew with all his men into the province.
Ursua Determines to Take Vigorous Measures. Clearly enough, in Ursua's opinion, things were far from being in a satisfactory condition. He made up his mind that a stop must be put to the menace of the Itzas at all costs, and he determined to go in person upon this definitive expedition. He made especially elaborate and adequate preparations, doing things which should have been done long before. He assembled a sufficient number of carpenters to build brigantines and pyraguas on the shore of the lake, and he got together ample stores. Nothing was said of all this to the King of Castile, as
