HISTORY OF THE SPANISH CONQUEST OF YUCATAN AND OF THE ITZAS

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and as the Spaniards do not come to this nation, nor the Indians of
this Province of Yucathan, nor of the other provinces, because they are
afraid of them, I do not know where they could get this gold and silver
unless they took it from some mine. In the said southerly direction
running towards the East, the said Peten Ytzaes have their farms and
tilled fields on the main land; and in said fields they have their
houses as in Peten, so as to live there all the time that the
cultivation lasts, so that the houses are doubled in number as well as
the families. From this, people imagine that this nation is more
numerous than it really is.

"The largest and best calculation which I can make of this nation was
from the account which the King and his chiefs gave me, and this was
that the _Peten_ in which we stopped consisted of twenty-two districts
and towns, and they did not know how to give me the count of each town,
since they know how to count only up to twenty, and in going beyond
many twenties, they do not know how to explain it, for it appears to