With the aid of the map furnished by the Indians, and such guides as they could pick up, they continued their march through other villages, and must have passed Ziguatepec, sixteen leagues further, when Cortez inquired of the caciques where the _deep and large river_ he saw discharged itself, and whether they had observed vessels sailing on the sea. He was told that the river discharged itself at Xicalango, situated on one of the tributaries of the Usumacinta, some twenty or twenty-five leagues from Palenque as a bird flies—a considerable distance in these wooded regions.
From Ziguatepec Cortez sent two of his followers to look for the ships, which had orders to wait at Xicalango; but when they reached the place they found the crews had been massacred and the ships destroyed by the Indians.
The Spaniards next halted at Acalan, a _district composed of some twenty villages_; very unlike the approaches to Palenque, which is situated on the first rising ground of the Cordillera. Cogolludo,[93] who follows Herrera, says that the capital of the great province of Acalan was Izancanac, whose king, Apoxpalon, had a palace sufficiently large to accommodate all the Spaniards without displacing the inmates, and that the multitudes of Indian auxiliaries were quartered in the town. This does not tally with what is known of Palenque, where, save the palace, all the houses and temples were too small ever to have made it possible to accommodate large numbers, unless they were distributed all over the town.
All the various indications we can glean with regard to Izancanac, lead us to assume that it was situated somewhere on the banks of S. Pedro, a confluent of the Usumacinta, an assumption which becomes almost a certainty, since that was the direct road to Honduras, and still more so when we find that they held on their toilsome way in the direction of Peten, reaching Chaltuna and Tayasal after three or four days’ march, to do which, had they come from Palenque, they must have employed at least twenty days.
But what has become of Izancanac? Where are the great buildings which could accommodate hundreds of people? The very site is unknown, whilst Palenque is still to be seen.[94] Although it is so difficult to determine the route held by Cortez, it affords, nevertheless, the best account we have relating to the organisation of the regions he traversed. He observed throughout independent caciques, a country divided into more or less important provinces, making it probable that the civilising and powerful influence which had knit these peoples into a mighty empire, had long ceased to be felt among these restless populations which, left to their warlike instincts, lived in constant warfare, as, for instance, in Yucatan after the fall of the dominant Cocomes and Tutulxius.