Note 903 — Chapter XXVIII · INVALUABLE FRIENDSHIP. July-September, 1520.

Herrera copies this account, but gives also another in an earlier chapter, which leads one to suppose that Yuste and a few companions escaped to the mountains. They either perished of hunger or were captured at some settlement while offering the remnant of their treasures for food. An inscription by Yuste on a piece of bark recorded their sufferings. ‘Por aqui passò el desdichado Iuan Iuste, con sus desdichados compañeros, con tãta hambre, que por pocas tortillas de mayz, diò vno vna barra de oro, que pesaua ochocientos ducados.’ dec. ii. lib. x. cap. xiii.; dec. iii. lib. i. cap. v. Torquemada repeats both versions, i. 530-1. Peter Martyr and Gomara are also confused, allowing the Yuste party in one page to fall at the pass, and on another to turn back to Villa Rica from Tlascala. Hist. Mex., 165, 181-2. A misinterpretation of a vague passage by Cortés is the cause of the mistake, into which nearly every writer has fallen. The party carried, according to the Cartas, 141, 183-4, a number of agreements with the natives, and other valuable documents, beside Cortés’ personal effects and valuables, worth over 30,000 pesos de oro. Bernal Diaz says three loads of gold. The inhabitants said that people from Tezcuco and Mexico had done the deed to avenge Cacama. But none except the natives of the district could have had time to gather for the attack.