sand hills, when we saw five Indians walking towards us along the beach. Not to alarm the camp needlessly, we allowed them to come up. They approached with smiles, made their salutes after their fashion, and signed that we should take them to our camp. In their underlips they had made large holes in which they wore pieces of stone speckled blue, or thin plates of gold, and holes in their ears were still larger and bore like adornments. They looked quite different in dress from the Mexicans Montezuma had sent to our camp, and when I presented them to Cortes neither Aguilar nor Donna Marina could understand what they said. When Donna Marina asked, however, if there were Interpreters among them, two said they understood the Mexican speech, adding that their chief had sent them to bid us welcome and ask who we were and he would be glad to be of use to such brave men as we. They would have come to us before, the Interpreters went on. If they had not shunned as villains the people of Colua, that is, the Mexicans, who they knew had been with us and now had left us. These facts taught Cortes a thing of Importance, namely, that Montezuma had many enemies. Our captain gave the five men presents and asked them to say to their chief that he would shortly pay him a visit.
I have already said that we were very short of provisions and our cassava bread foul with worms.
