position, killed the messengers of peace. Whereupon Alvarado, after demanding of his host all the gold that could be gathered together, marched against the hostile tribe with eighty horses and a large force of Spaniards and native troops. When he presented himself before their town they refused to parley. He then advanced along the shore of the lake towards a fortress which was built in the lake and connected with the shore by a causeway. Here the Indians made a fierce resistance, but the invaders pressed on, slaying their opponents and climbing over their dead bodies until they reached the fortress. When this was captured the defenders who survived threw themselves into the water and swam to a little island nearby.

After passing the night in the neighboring cornfields, the Spaniards visited the city; but to their astonishment it was found deserted. So they captured some of the fugitives, by whom they sent messages of peace to the chiefs. These answered that their country had never before been subdued; but since the Castilians had shown such skill and ardor, they wished to be their friends. Accordingly they came to the camp of Alvarado, and touching his hand, as their custom was, acknowledged themselves his vassals.

On his return to Guatemala in triumph, he received deputies from all the tribes of the lake regions, asking peace. While he was dispensing favors to the submissive, however, he varied the monotony of conquest by falling in love with a beautiful Indian woman. She happened to be the best beloved wife of his host, but this fact seems only to have lent zest to the courtship. With some trumped up charge against the king, he threw him into irons, and seized the wife, perhaps not reluctant to be possessed by so handsome and so potent a cavalier. To redeem her the king presented to his guest all the jewels he could collect and offered the daughters of many chieftains; but Alvarado kept her until he grew weary of her charms.

Alvarado was now informed that a district to the south called Itzcuintlan had refused obedience to him, and he set

forth to take vengeance on its people. His usual success accompanied him. He advanced from town to town, sometimes forced to crush a hostile tribe, sometimes winning his way by intimidation or conciliation.

At last he reached and crossed the La Paz river, the boundary of the present state of Salvador. In this new territory, the towns at first received him peaceably; but when he approached the town of Acajutla, he found a great army of Indians drawn up for its defence, their spearsmen in serried ranks, and their war plumes and feather banners waving in the air. Seeing that their position was a strong one, Alvarado had recourse to a ruse; he pretended to retreat. The enemy immediately fell upon his men in hot pursuit; but the Spaniards, after obtaining a more advantageous position, suddenly turned and dealt death and destruction to their pursuers. The defeat of the latter was all the greater because their bodies were protected by cotton armor, three fingers' width in thickness, which covered them like a sack from head to foot, and was so heavy that they could neither flee nor get up when they fell down. Their lances and spears, however, were very long, and they used them with such effect that many of the Spaniards were wounded. Alvarado, himself, was shot through the thigh with an arrow, and during the rest of his life he limped with one leg shorter than the other. His vengeance, however, was complete. When he entered the city it is said that not one of the enemy had been left alive.

As he had gathered but little booty up to this time, Alvarado pushed on to Cuzcatlan, the capital of the country. It was a fine city with many inhabitants, and the chiefs received the Spaniards with hospitality. The inhabitants, however, took to flight and carried on for many days a guerrilla warfare with the invaders. Finally, Alvarado, finding his army diminishing, and harassed by the enemy as well as by the terrible semi-tropical rains, decided to return. to Guatemala. Here, in July, 1524, he founded the town of Santiago of Guatemala, named in honor of St. James,

the patron saint of Spain. It was built on a verdant plain, but under the shadow of two mountains, one of which furnished such abundant streams of water that the Spaniards called it Volcan de Agua, while the other shot forth such fiery flames that it was called Volcan de Fuego. In the middle of the town was founded a church in honor of the same saint, and magistrates, judges, and other officers were duly appointed. The entire army, in gala attire, joined in the celebration of the holy mass. Alvarado now made a report to Cortés of all that he had done, and Cortés sent on the report to the king, requesting that Alvarado should be made governor of that province.

CHAPTER VIII

THE EXPEdition of DIEGO GUTIERREZ TO

COSTA RICA

UNTIL the middle of the sixteenth century little progress had been made in the exploration of what is now the State of Costa Rica or, as it was also called, Nueva Cartago. Its present capital, Cartago, though with a site further to the west, may have been founded by some fugitives from Brusélas early in the sixteenth century, but neither the actual founder nor the date is known with any degree of certainty. It is true that the eastern coast had been visited by Columbus in 1502, while the western portion had been penetrated later by Gil Gonzalez and by Francisco Hernandez de Córdova. The latter had also founded the town of Brusélas in 1524; but this settlement was disbanded three years later by order of Salcedo. The interior of the country, which was thickly wooded and almost impenetrable, naturally remained unsettled until the more accessible provinces had been conquered and portioned out to various governors.

In 1540, however, the governorship of Costa Rica was granted to a Spaniard named Diego Gutierrez, who had heard rumors of a rich treasure obtained from it by the great Montezuma, and who was eager to enrich himself in this wild country. Perhaps no other Spanish adventurer ever met with greater misfortunes and a more disastrous end than Gutierrez.

At Jamaica, a mutiny among his men caused the loss of his military stores; at Nombre de Dios he fell ill, and all

but five of his men deserted him. He managed, however, to fit out a small vessel, and by sailing up the San Juan river he reached the town of Granada in Nicaragua. Here he succeeded in borrowing a large sum of money from an adventurer like himself, but the governor received him coldly, and declared that his own jurisdiction extended over the wild and rugged Costa Rica, and that there was no room for another governor between Veragua and Nicaragua. When Gutierrez, however, showed him his charter, defining the limits of his grant, the governor advised him not to venture into so dangerous a country. But nothing could dissuade the new proprietor from making the attempt. With two vessels and a force of sixty men, he sought the eastern coast, and sailed up the river Surre.

After he had ascended the river a few leagues, he met some Indians, who in exchange for the usual trinkets, furnished him with a small quantity of gold and some provisions. But his men soon grew discontented over the hardships of the journey and the evil disposition of their leader, and again he was deserted by all but a half-dozen of his followers. There was nothing to do but to give up the enterprise and follow the deserters to the seashore. When he arrived on the coast, his men had already taken ship for Nicaragua, but he was lucky enough to find a vessel from that province which had just arrived with provisions and arms for the proposed settlement. Encouraged by this good fortune, he sent to Nombre de Dios for more men, and when these reached him, sent back for still more, until he had eighty in all.

With this force he ascended the river until he reached an Indian village, to which he gave the name of San Francisco. Here he met several chiefs, who visited him with presents of fruit, but brought so little gold that Gutierrez hardened his heart against them. Promising fair treatment, he enticed two of the caciques, Camachire and Cocori, into his camp, and when he had secured them, he chained them to a beam until they should cause to be brought a large