As soon as we were all on board we kept on the old course, the same that was followed by Francisco Hernández de Córdova, and in eight days we reached the neighbourhood of the town of Chanpoton which was the place where the Indians of that province had defeated us, as I have already related in a former chapter. As the tide runs out very far in the bay, we anchored our ships a league from the shore and then making use of all the boats we disembarked half the soldiers close to the houses of the town.

The Indians of the town and others from the neighbourhood at once assembled, as they had done on the other occasion when they killed over fifty-six of our soldiers and wounded all the rest, as I have already related, and for that reason they were now very proud and haughty, and they were well armed in their own manner with bows, arrows, and lances, some of them as long as our lances and some of them shorter, and shields and macanas and two-handed swords and slings and stones, and they wore cotton armour and carried trumpets and drums, and many of them had their faces painted black and others red and white. They were drawn up in array and awaited us on the shore, ready to fall on us as we landed.