8 The Beginning of British Honduras
now in the territory of the Aztec emperor, and a friendly con-
ference took place between Grijalva and the cacique who
ruled the province as tributary to Montezuma. This native
chief wanted to find out as much as possible about these
strangers and transmit the information to his master who too
had heard about the raids or visits of the white men. The
visitor wanted to find out more about the great Indian em-
pire in the interior of which he had heard. They exchanged
presents, the Spaniards giving trifling objects of European
manufacture like glass beads, the Indians giving gold orna-
ments of careful workmanship and strange forms valued at
15 or 20 thousand pesos de oro.
 Grijalva returned to Cuba, and the next visitors came in
1519 with ships, men, horses, cannons, and swords, led by
Hernan Cortes now on his way to conquer Mexico. In Cozu-
mel he caused the stone crosses of the deity to which the
whole neighbourhood made pilgrimages to be rolled down
from their pedestals to prove their inferiority to his religion
which he offered them. On the Yucatan coast he picked up
Geronimo de Aguilar who had received message from his
countrymen to embrace this opportunity of returning across
the forest, and in Tabasco Cortes fought and won a great
battle after which several native girls were given him as a
propitiatory gift. Amongst these girls was a Mexican one,
later named Marina, who with Aguilar rendered service as
interpreters to Cortes and so helped in the conquest of the
Aztec state. Through the Aztec picture-writing Montezuma
received information of the landing of a new kind of people
on the distant shores of his empire, a people unlike his own
because of their fair skins and ample beards. Their coming
from the east instantly reminded him of the promise made
by Quetzalcoatl about his eventual return from that direction
to set up his empire again. Moreover, these visitors were de-
termined centaur-like beings who brought with them a varie-
ty of thunder and lightning. The picture-writing showed
their sharp, death-dealing swords and huge floating bird-like