very difficult ascent. There we found many people gathered together for fear of the Christians. They received us very well and gave us everything they had. They gave us two thousand loads of com, which we gave to those miserable, hungry people who had taken us there. The following day we dispatched four messengers from there, as was our custom, to call and convene all the people they could to a village three days' journey from there. After doing this, we set out the following day with all the people there. Along the way we found signs and traces of the places where Christians had spent the night. At midday we came upon our messengers, who told us they had found no people because they were all hiding in the mountains, fleeing so that the Christians would not kill them or enslave them. They said that the previous night they had seen Christians. The Indians had hidden behind some trees to see what the Christians were doing and they saw that they were taking many Indians in chains. The Indians who had come with us were greatly upset by this, and some of them turned back to give the warning throughout the land that Christians were coming. Many more would have done the same if we had not told them not to do it and not to be afraid. They were greatly reassured and relieved by this. Indians who lived one hundred leagues away then came with us there since we could not persuade them to return to their homes. To reassure them we slept there that night. The next day we traveled on and slept on the way. The following day, the Indians we had sent ahead as messengers led us to where they had seen the Christians. We arrived there at the hour of vespers and clearly saw that they had told the truth. We noticed that horsemen had been there because we saw the stakes where the horses had been tethered. From this place, called the Petutan River, to the river reached by Diego de Guzmán, where we first heard of Christians, there may be eighty leagues; from there to the village where we were caught in the rains, twelve leagues; and from that village to the South Sea,