his service and asked for soldiers and caciques to keep him company. Cortes was loth to part with Ordas, for a man of such good counsel he wished to keep near. But at last, in order not to displease him, our captain gave consent. Montezuma then cautioned the officer to be on his guard, for the people of that country were very warlike and not subject to him, and therefore if harm should befall him, he, the monarch, should not suffer reproach; on the frontiers, before entrance to the province, he would meet garrisons of Mexican warriors, and if he, Ordas, had need of them, he should take them for his company.
The first to return to the City of Mexico were Gonzalo de Umbria and his comrades, who brought upwards of three hundred dollars in grains. The caciques of the provinces, according to Umbria's account, had taken many people to two rivers and in small vessels washed the earth and collected the gold. If clever miners were to work in the rivers, he thought, and the earth washed as they washed it in Santo Domingo and Cuba, these would prove rich mines. Two caciques of the province accompanied Umbria, and they, pledging themselves as vassals of our king, brought a present worth about two hundred dollars. Cortes was as much pleased with the gold as if it had been thirty thousand dollars, for it assured him that good mines lay in that province.
