Cortés found a village on the shore of Lake Izabal, perhaps Xocolo. He crossed the Dulce River to the settlement of Nito, somewhere on the Amatique Bay, with about a dozen companions, and waited there for the rest of his army to regroup over the course of the next week. By this time the remnants of the expedition had been reduced to a few hundred; Cortés succeeded in contacting the Spaniards he was searching for, only to find that Cristóbal de Olid's own officers had already put down his rebellion. Cortés constructed an improvised brigantine and, accompanied by canoes, he ascended the Dulce River to Lake Izabal, with about 40 Spaniards, and a number of Indians. He at first believed he had reached the Pacific, but soon realised his error. At the western end of the lake, he marched inland and engaged in battle with the Maya natives at the city of Chacujal, on the Polochic River. He seized plentiful supplies of food from the city and sent supplies back to Nito in the brigantine. He had rafts built to ferry supplies back downriver, and returned to Nito with them, while most of his men marched back overland. Cortés then returned to Mexico by sea. Land of War: Verapaz By 1537 the area immediately north of the new colony of Guatemala was being referred to as the Tierra de Guerra ("Land of War"). Paradoxically, it was simultaneously known as Verapaz ("True Peace"). The Land of War described an area that was undergoing conquest; it was a region of dense forest that was difficult for the Spanish to penetrate militarily. Whenever the Spanish located a centre of population in this region, the inhabitants were moved and concentrated in a new colonial settlement near the edge of the jungle where the Spanish could more easily control them. This strategy resulted in the gradual depopulation of the forest, simultaneously converting it into a wilderness refuge for those fleeing Spanish domination, both for individual refugees and for entire communities, especially those congregaciones that were remote from centres of colonial authority. The Land of War, from the 16th century through to the start of the 18th century, included a vast area from Sacapulas in the west to Nito on the Caribbean coast and extended northwards from Rabinal and Salamá, and was an intermediate area between the highlands and the northern lowlands. It includes the modern