said they were afraid that what they had been told was not the truth, because those captains who had been there before had said the same thing and afterwards they had discovered it was all a lie; for the women whom they had given them to make their bread had been kept, as well as the men who carried their baggage, and they feared I would do the same. Still they were reassured by what the Mexicans and my interpreter told them, and by observing that they were all well treated and happy in our company, so they grew a little more confident. I sent them to speak to the chiefs and people of the towns, and, a few days later, the captain wrote me that some of the neighbouring towns had come peaceably, especially the chief ones, which are Naco, where they are stationed, Quimiotlan, Suli, and Tholomi, the smallest of which numbered more than two thousand households, besides other villages depending on them; they had said that they would later all peaceably return to their homes, for messengers had been sent to reassure them, and let them know of my arrival and of all I had told them, and what they had learned from the natives of Mexico. They also greatly desired I should visit them, for the people would be more reassured by my presence. This I would willingly have done had I not been obliged to go on and reestablish order elsewhere, concerning which I will relate to Your Majesty in the following chapter.
Upon my arrival, Invincible Cæsar, at that town of Nito, where I found the lost people of Gil Gonzalez, I
News from
the Colony
of Honduras
learnt from them that Francisco de las Casas, one of my lieutenants, whom I had sent to inquire about Cristobal de Olid and his men, as I have already related to Your Majesty, had left certain Spaniards down the coast at a port which the pilots called Las Honduras; these Spaniards no doubt were still there. As soon as I reached that town and bay of San Andres, where, in Your Majesty's
