In the mean time the son of the adelantado arrived from Campeachy; and being now all united, and the Indians at first withholding all supplies, they very soon began to suffer from want of provisions. While in this condition, unexpectedly a great cacique from the interior came to them voluntarily (the circumstances will appear hereafter) and made submission. Some neighbouring caciques of Tihoo, either moved by this example, or finding that, after so many years of war, they could not prevail against the Spaniards, also submitted. Encouraged by the friendship of these caciques, and believing that they might count upon their succour until they had finished the subjection of the country, the Spaniards determined to found a city on the site occupied by Tihoo; but in the mean time a terrific storm was gathering over their heads. All the Indians from the east of Tihoo were drawing together; and in the month of June, toward the evening of the feast of Barnaby the apostle, an immense body, varying, according to manuscript accounts, from forty to seventy thousand, came down upon the small band of a little more than two hundred then in Tihoo. The following day they attacked the Spanish camp on all sides. The most terrible battle the Spaniards had ever encountered ensued. "Divine power," says the pious historian, "works more than human valour. What were so few Catholics against so many infidels!" The battle lasted the greater part of the day. Many Indians were killed, but immediately others took their places, for they were so many that they were like the leaves on the trees. The arquebuses and crossbows made great havoc, and the horsemen carried destruction wherever they moved, cutting down the fugitives, trampling under foot the wounded and dying. Piles of dead bodies stopped the Spaniards in their pursuit. The Indians were completely routed, and for a great distance the ground was covered with their dead. The fame of the Spaniards rose higher than before, and the Indians never rallied again for a general battle. All this year the invaders were occupied in drawing to them and conciliating the neighbouring caciques, and on the sixth of January, 1542, they founded, with all legal formalities, on the site of the Indian town of Tihoo, the "very loyal and noble" city of Merida. Here I shall leave them; and I make no apology for presenting this history. It was forty years since a straggling canoe at the island of Guanaja first gave intelligence of the existence of such a country as Yucatan, and sixteen since Don Francisco Montejo received the royal authority to conquer and people it. During that time Cortez had driven Montezuma from the throne of Mexico, and Pizarro had seized the sceptre of the Peruvian Incas. In the glory of these conquests Yucatan was unnoticed, and has been to this day. The ancient historians refer to it briefly and but seldom. The only separate account of it is that of Cogolludo, a native historian.