14 The Beginning of British Honduras
the 300 years of European occupation which brought to these
people living in the stone age the high civilization of Spain
with its beautiful language, its feudal, legal, and religious
system. After the conquest, the Andalusian influence in
Spain's colonization was stronger than the Castilian, and one
finds it surviving to-day in the pronunciation of the language
throughout Spanish America once ruled by the Royal Audi-
ence and the Council of the Indies at Seville.
 Bacalar was founded in 1545 by Melchior Pacheco on the
site called by the Maya Indians Bakhalal, which he named
Salamanca. Father Lorenzo de Bienvenida, who came to
Yucatan in 1534 and died there in 1560 was familiar with
Bacalar where he baptised many Indians. He worked in
Merida and Campeche, returned to Spain three times, and
wrote that Gaspar Pacheco had been given this captaincy on
condition that he should go and conquer some provinces ly-
ing in the direction of the Golfo Dulce. This is a reference
to the Cockscomb Coast. Thus, the two Pachecos, Gaspar and
Melchior, established regular communication for a time on
this coast between Bacalar and the Golfo Dulce, an old Indian
water route which the Spaniards gave up after a generation,
because of the unhealthy climate at both ends, unlike the
healthier Cockscomb Coast which lies between.