During this night we came to the determination of marching early the next day against the town of Chiapa itself. And, indeed, it might in every respect be termed a town, so fine an appearance had the houses, besides being so regularly built. Its population amounted to above 4000 souls, in which that of the many surrounding townships is not included, though the whole of them were subject to Chiapa. Early next morning, accordingly, we marched forward for this place and observed the utmost military precaution; but we had scarcely advanced one mile when we came up with the united forces of this province. The enemy, with surprising swiftness and accoutred in their most splendid war costume, fell upon us from all sides at once under the most hideous yells, and fought with the ferocity of infuriated lions. Our black artilleryman, (for he was every way entitled to the appellation of negro,) in the dread of the moment had quite lost his senses, and forgot to fire the cannon; but when at last, by hollowing out to him at the top of our voices, he summoned sufficient courage to fire it with a trembling hand, he wounded three of our own men, instead of committing any destruction among the enemy's ranks. Our captain seeing how matters stood, now ordered the cavalry to form themselves in the small bodies above mentioned, the rest of the troops to close in a firm body together and in that way to fall vigorously upon the enemy; but their numbers were too great, and if there had not been many of us present who were accustomed to Indian warfare, the rest of the troops would have been in the greatest consternation. We were indeed astonished to find how firmly these Indians maintained their ground. Father Juan kept constantly encouraging us to the attack, by saying, "That our reward would lay with God and the emperor." Our captain likewise animated us with the cry of: "Forward! gentlemen, Santiago is with us!" And now we fell upon the enemy with renewed courage and compelled them to give way. From the very unfavorable state of the ground, which was covered with loose stones, our cavalry were unable to pursue the enemy with any success; but we kept as close at their heels as we possibly could, and marched with less precaution, as we thought this day's work was at an end, and we offered up thanks to God for our victory. However, when we had arrived near to some small hills we found even larger bodies of men drawn up in order of battle. Besides their usual weapons they had a number of ropes with loops at the end, which they threw at the horses in order to pull them to the ground. Strong nets which they use for the purpose of snaring the wild deer were also fixed at certain distances to catch our horse, and they had other smaller ropes with loops, which were to be thrown about our necks to pull us towards them. The whole of these troops in an instant fell upon us, pouring forth as they came along so vast a number