On the top of this pyramid was a building of stone that I took to be a temple, and rightly, in front of which a fire burned.

Marvelling what the purpose of this great work might be, and in honour of what faith it was erected, I went to sleep.
On the morrow I was to learn.
Here it may be convenient for me to state, what I did not discover till afterwards, that I was in the city of Tobasco, the capital of one of the southern provinces of Anahuac, which is situated at a distance of some hundreds of miles from the central city of Tenoctitlan, or Mexico.

The river where I had been cast away was the Rio de Tobasco, where Cortes landed in the following year, and my host, or rather my captor, was the cacique or chief of Tobasco, the same man who subsequently presented Marina to Cortes.

Thus it came about that, with the exception of a certain Aguilar, who with some companions was wrecked on the coast of Yucatan six years before, I was the first white man who ever dwelt among the Indians.

This Aguilar was rescued by Cortes, though his companions were all sacrificed to Huitzel, the horrible war-god of the country.