"I will now relate," says Diaz, "what Cortez did, which I call very unfair. All those who were the dependents of great men, who flattered him and told him pleasing things, he loaded with favors. Not that I blame him for being generous, for there was enough for all; but I say that he ought to have first considered those who served his majesty, and whose valor and blood made him what he was. But it is useless detailing our misfortunes, and how he treated us like vassals, and how we were obliged to take to our old trade of expeditions and battles; for, though he forgot us in his distribution of property, he never failed to call upon us when he wanted our assistance. When we went to the general with the request that he would give us some part of the property which his majesty had ordered that we should receive, he told us, and swore to it, that he would provide for us all, and not do as he had done, for which he was very sorry. As if we were to be satisfied with promises and smooth words!" Cortez had a very effectual way of escaping from such remonstrants. He immediately dispatched such men as were troublesome on some important expedition, where all their energies of mind and body would be engrossed in surmounting the difficulties which they would be called to encounter. A man by the name of Rangel, who had some considerable influence, was complaining bitterly. Cortez immediately decided that the distant province of the Zapotecans was in a threatening attitude, and needed looking after. They were a fierce people, dwelling among almost inaccessible cliffs, where no horse could climb and no artillery be dragged. From such an enterprise it was little probable that the troublesome man would ever return. He was consequently honored with the command of the expedition. For apparently the same reason, Bernal Diaz, whose complaints we have just read, was appointed to accompany the detachment. The forlorn party entered boldly the defiles of the mountains, and wading through marshes, and struggling through ravines, and clambering over rocks, with the utmost difficulty and peril penetrated the savage region. The natives, nimble as the chamois, leaped from crag to crag, whistling an insulting defiance with a peculiarly shrill note, with which every rock seemed vocal. Stones were showered down upon them, and immense rocks, torn from their beds, leaped crashing over their path. Their peril soon became great, and it was so evidently impossible to accomplish any important result, that they abandoned the expedition, nearly all wounded, and many having been killed.