THE NARRATIVE 
 
 / n " 
 
 OF 
 
 
 <fc 
 
 ALVAR NUNEZ CABECA I)E VACA. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY BUCKINGHAM SMITH. 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 1851. 
 
 
The Narrative of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, printed at Valladolid 
 in 1555, has never before appeared in English, and the original edition, in 
 Spanish, has now become so rare, that few collections on this side of the 
 Atlantic contain a copy. 
 
 Thi-s account of one of the earliest explorations of territory within the 
 limits of the United States, and of its inJutbitants, has been deemed worthy 
 of selection from the works on America of the sixteenth century, for pre 
 sentation in tills form, to a few personal friends, whose tastes and whose 
 studies induce them to examine tJie history of our country from the begin 
 ning. 
 
 G. W. R., JR. 
 
 WASHINGTON, January 1, 1851. 
 
TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS 
 
 CONTAINED IN THE NARRATIVE AND SHIPWRECKS OF THE 
 GOVERNOR,* ALVAR NUNEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE PROEM, ........ 9 
 
 CHAPTER I. The time the armada left in which sailed the said Cabeza de 
 
 Vaca, and who more went in it, . . . . .11 
 
 CHAPTER II. How the Governor came to the port of Xagua, and brought 
 
 with him a pilot, ....... 15 
 
 CHAPTER III. How they arrived in Florida, . . . .16 
 
 CHAPTER IV. How they went into the interior of Florida, . . 17 
 
 CHAPTER V. How and with what provision the Governor left the ships, . 21 
 CHAPTER VI. Of how they arrived at Apalache, . . . .24 
 
 CHAPTER VII. Of the character and situation of that land, . . 25 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. How they left Aute, ..... 30 
 
 CHAPTER IX. How they departed the Bay of Cavallos, . . .34 
 
 CHAPTER X. Of the affray they had with the Indians, . . .37 
 
 CHAPTER XI. Of what befel Lope de Oviedo with some Indians, . . 41 
 
 CHAPTER XII. How the Indians brought them food, . . .43 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. How they heard of other Christians, . . .46 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. How the four Christians set out, . . .48 
 
 CHAPTER XV. Of what befel them in the town of Malhado, . . 51 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. How they left the Island of Malhado, 
 
 * He was successor to Mendoza in the government of the Province of the La Plata, in the 
 year 1540. TR. 
 
viii TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. How the Indians brought Andres Dorantes, Castillo, and 
 
 Estevanico, ........ 57 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. Of the account Figueroa gave of Esquivel, . . 61 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. Of how the Indians separated the Christians from each other, 66 
 CHAPTER XX. How the Christians fled from the Indians, . . 68 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. How they cured the sick, . . . .70 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. How many sick were brought to them, . . .72 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. How they ate the dogs, and departed from want of food, 78 
 CHAPTER XXIV. Of the customs of the Indians of that country, . . 80 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. Of how the Indians are ready in fight, . . .82 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. Of the nations and tongues of those countries, . . 84 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. Of how the Christians moved away and were well received, 86 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. Of the customs of the country, . . . 89 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. Of the custom of the Indians in robbing each other, . 92 
 CHAPTER XXX. Of how the custom of receiving the Christians changed, . 96 
 CHAPTER XXXI. Of how they took the way to the maize because of the 
 
 subsistence, ........ 101 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. Of how many hearts of deer were given to the Christians, 104 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. Of how they found signs of Christians, . .108 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. Of how Alvar Nunez sent for the Christians who were 
 
 with the Indians, . . . . . . .110 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. Of how Melchoir Diaz, principal alcalde of Culiazan, 
 
 received them well, ....... 113 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. How they caused churches to be built in that land, . 116 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. Of what befel them when they wished to come to Castile, 118 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. In which is given an account of what more occurred 
 
 to those who went to the Indias, and what became of them, . . 121 
 
 END OF THE TABLE TO THIS BOOK. 
 
PROEM. 
 
 SACRED IMPERIAL CATHOLIC MAJESTY : 
 
 AMONG the many princes whom we know to have been in the 
 world, none, I think, can be found, of whom men, with such entire 
 willingness, have attempted the service with so great zeal and ambition 
 as we see shown for your Majesty s at this day. It is evident that this 
 cannot be without great motive and reason ; neither are men so blind 
 that they alike should pursue the same path without ground, since it is 
 taken not only by Spaniards, whom loyalty and religion constrain, but 
 even by strangers, who strive to surpass them. 
 
 Although the wish and desire to serve are alike in all, yet as to 
 the advantages that each may gain, there are very great inequalities of 
 fortune, not the consequence of their acts, but only of accident, or more 
 certainly not caused by the fault of any, but solely by the will and 
 providence of God : whence it arises that to one come more signal deeds 
 than he thought to achieve, and to an fit her it happens all the contrary ; 
 so that he can show no other proof of his purpose than his exertion, and 
 even this at times remains so concealed that it cannot of itself appear. 
 
 As for me, I can say that, in undertaking the march I made on the 
 main land, by your royal authority, I firmly thought that my acts and 
 services would be as evident and distinguished as were those of my 
 ancestry, and that I should have no necessity to speak to be reckoned 
 among those who faithfully and diligently administer your affairs, and 
 
10 PROEM. 
 
 whom your Majesty honors. But, as neither ray counsel nor constancy 
 profited to gain that for which we set out in conformity to your service, 
 and as for our sins God permitted, of the many armaments which have 
 gone to those parts, that none should find itself in like great peril as 
 this, or have had such wretched and disastrous end, there remains to 
 me no room for further duty here than to present an account of that 
 which I could see and hear in the ten years (A) that I wandered, lost and 
 bare, through many and remote lands, as well the situations and dis 
 tances of the countries as of their animals and vegetation, the diverse 
 customs of many and very barbarous nations with whom I talked and 
 dwelt, and all matters that I could discover and understand, that by 
 these in some way I may be useful to your Highness ; for, although the 
 hope of going out from among these people was always small, my care 
 and diligence were ever great to keep a particular remembrance of every 
 thing, that if at any time God, our Lord, should will to bring me where 
 I now am, I might be able to give evidence of my effort, and serve your 
 Majesty. 
 
 As the narrative is, in my opinion, of no trivial value to those 
 who, in your name, shall go to conquer those lands, and to bring them 
 to a knowledge of the true faith and true Lord, and under the imperial 
 dominion, I have written it with so much exactness, that, although in 
 it may be read some things very new, and, for some persons, very 
 difficult to believe, they may, without hesitation, credit them as most 
 certain, since in everything I have lessened rather than exaggerated, 
 and sufficient to say that I offer it to your Majesty for truth. This I 
 beg you will receive in the name of service, since it is all that a man 
 could bring with him who returned thence naked. 
 
THE SHIP AYE EC KS 
 
 OF 
 
 ALVAR NUNEZ CABEZA DE VACA, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IX WHICH IS TOLD WHEN THE AKMADA SAILED, AXD OF THE OFFICERS AND 
 
 PERSONS WHO WENT IN IT. 
 
 ON the seventeenth day of June, in the year fifteen hundred and 
 twenty-seven, the governor, Pamphilo de Narvaez, left the town of San 
 Lucar de Barrameda, authorized and commanded by your Majesty to 
 conquer and govern the territories that extend from the River Palmas 
 to the Cape of Florida, which are on the main land. The fleet he took 
 was five ships, in which went six hundred men, a few more or less. 
 The officers he took (for we shall have to speak of them) were these, 
 and here are their names : Cabeza de Vaca, treasurer and high-sheriff; 
 Alonso Enrriquez, distributor to your Majesty, and assessor ; and Juan 
 Suarez, a friar of the Order of Saint Francis, commissary ; and four 
 friars besides, of the same order. 
 
 We arrived at the Island of San Domingo, where we were near 
 forty-five days procuring for ourselves some necessary things, particu 
 larly horses. Here we lost from our fleet more than one hundred and 
 forty men, who wished to remain, seduced by the partidos and advan 
 tages held out to them by the people of the country. 
 
12 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 We sailed from this and arrived at Santiago (which is a port in 
 Cuba), where, during some days that we remained, the governor re-sup 
 plied himself with men, and arms, and horses. It happened there that 
 a gentleman, whose name was Vasco Porcalle, (D) a resident in the 
 vicinage of the town of Trinidad (which is also on the island), offered 
 to give the governor some provisions which he had in this town, a 
 hundred leagues from the port of Santiago. (C) So the governor set out 
 with all the fleet for Trinidad; but, coming to a port half way, called 
 the Cape of Santa Cruz, he thought it well to wait there, and send a 
 vessel io .bririg- the pro visions : and to this end he ordered a Captain 
 Pantoja, that he should go for them with his ship, and that I, for greater 
 security, should accompany him with another. The governor remained 
 with four ships ; for he had bought a ship at the Island of San Domingo. 
 
 We having arrived with these two vessels at the point of Trinidad, 
 the Captain Pantoja went with Vasco Porcalle to the town, which is a 
 league off, to receive the provisions. I remained at sea with the pilots, 
 who said that they ought to depart thence with the greatest despatch 
 possible, for it was a bad port, and where many vessels had been lost. 
 As what occurred to us there was very remarkable, it appears to me not 
 distant from the purpose with which I write this, to relate it here. 
 
 The morning of the next day began to give signs of bad weather, 
 for it commenced raining, and the sea to run so high that, although I 
 gave the men permission to go on shore, many of them returned to the 
 ship, because the town was a league off, and to avoid exposure to the 
 wet and cold. At this time came a canoe, bringing me a letter from a 
 resident of the town, asking me to come there, and to receive the neces 
 sary stores ; from which request I excused myself, saying that I would 
 not leave the ships. About noon, the canoe returned with another letter, 
 which, with much solicitation, invited me again, and a horse was brought 
 for me to ride. I gave the same answer as at first, saying that I would 
 not leave the ships ; but the pilots and people entreated me to go, so 
 that I might hasten the provisions as fast as possible, that we might 
 join the fleet where it lay, for they had great fear, lest, remaining where 
 we were, we should be lost. For this reason, I determined to go to the 
 town ; but first, I left orders with the pilots, if the south wind, which 
 wrecked many vessels there, came on to blow, and they should find 
 
ALVAR NUNEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 1:5 
 
 themselves in much danger, to put the ships on shore at some place 
 where the men and horses could be saved. I wished to take some of 
 the men with me for company, hut they said it was too rainy and cold, 
 and the town too far off; that to-morrow, which was Sunday, they would 
 come, with God s help, and hear mass. 
 
 An hour after I left, the sea began to rise very high, and the north 
 wind was so violent that neither the boats dared come to land, nor could 
 the vessels be let drive on shore, because of the headwind; in a manner 
 that the people remained severely laboring against the adverse weather, 
 and under a heavy fall of water, all that day and Sunday until dark. 
 At this time, the rain and the tempest began to increase to such a degree 
 that there was not less uproar in the town than on the sea ; for all the 
 houses and churches fell, and it was necessary that we should walk 
 seven or eight together arm in arm that the wind might not blow us 
 away : and, walking in the forest, we had not less fear of the trees than 
 of the houses, as they too were falling and might kill us under them. 
 In this tempest and peril, we wandered all night without finding a place 
 where we could remain a half hour in safety. During the time, and 
 particularly about midnight, we heard much tumult and great clamor 
 of voices, and sound of timbrels, of Hutcs and tamborincs, and of other 
 instruments, which lasted until the morning, when the tempest ceased. 
 Nothing so terrible as this storm had been seen in these parts before. I 
 drew up an authenticated account of it, and sent the testimony to your 
 Majesty. 
 
 On Monday morning, we went down to the harbor, but did not find 
 the ships. The buoys belonging to them were floating on the water; 
 thence we knew that the ships were lost, and we walked along the shore 
 to see if we could find anything of them. As we saw nothing, we 
 struck into the woods, and, having traveled about a quarter of a league 
 in water, we found the boat of one of the ships lodged upon some trees. 
 Ten leagues thence along the coast the bodies of two persons were found 
 belonging to my ship, and the lids of certain boxes; but the persons were 
 so disfigured by beating against the rocks that they could not be recog 
 nized. A cloak too was found, a coverlet rent in pieces, and nothing 
 more. Sixty persons were lost in the ships, and twenty horses. Those 
 who had gone on shore the day of our arrival, who may have been 
 
14 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 as many as thirty, were all the survivors of both ships. During some 
 days, we were struggling with much difficulty and hunger ; for the pro 
 visions and subsistence of the town were destroyed, and the cattle. The 
 country was left in a condition piteous to behold ; the trees prostrate, 
 the woods burnt, and there was no grass nor leaf. 
 
 Thus we remained until the fifth day of November, when the 
 governor arrived with his four ships, which had lived through the great 
 storm, having reached a place of safety in good time. The people who 
 came in the ships, as well as those on shore, were so intimidated by what 
 had passed that they feared to leave in the winter, and they besought 
 the governor to spend it there. Seeing their desire, and that it was also 
 the wish of the citizens, he remained during the winter. He gave the 
 ships and people into my charge, that I should go with them to pass the 
 season at the port of Xagua, twelve leagues thence, where I remained 
 until the twentieth da}- of February. 
 
ALVAR NUStEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HOW THE GOVERNOR CAME TO THE PORT OF XAGUA, AXD BROUGHT WITH HIM 
 
 A PILOT. 
 
 AT this time, the governor arrived with a brig, which he had bought 
 in Trinidad, and he brought with him a pilot named Miruelo, who had 
 been employed because he said he knew the position of the river Pal- 
 mas, and had been there, and was a thorough pilot for all the coast of 
 the North.* The governor had purchased and left on the coast of 
 Havana another vessel, in command of which Alvaro de la Cerda 
 remained, with forty infantry and twelve cavalry. 
 
 The second day after the arrival, the governor set sail with four 
 hundred men and eighty horses, in four ships and a brig. The pilot, 
 who had again been taken on board, put the vessels among the shoals 
 they call Canarreo, so that on the day following we struck, and thus we 
 were fifteen days, the keels of our vessels frequently touching on the 
 bottom. At the end of this time, a tempest from the South threw so 
 much water upon the shoals that we could get off, although not without 
 much peril. Having left this and arrived at Guaniguanico, another 
 storm overtook us, in which we were at one time near being lost. At 
 Cape Corrientes we had another, which detained us three days. These 
 places being passed, we doubled Cape San Anton, and sailed within 
 twelve leagues of Havana. Standing in the next day to enter the 
 harbor, there came a wind from the South which drove us from the land 
 and toward the coast of Florida. We came in sight of it on Tuesday, 
 the twelfth day of April, and sailed along the coast. On Holy Thurs 
 day we anchored near the shore in the mouth of a bay, at the head of 
 which we saw some houses or habitations of Indians. 
 
 * He was the younger of the name, and had sailed with Pineda Barcia. 
 
16 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOW WE ARRIVED IN FLORIDA. 
 
 ON the same day, the controller, Alonso Enrriquez, landed on an 
 island in the bay. He called to the Indians, who came, and were with 
 him some time ; and in the way of exchange gave him fish and several 
 pieces of venison. The day following, which was Good Friday, the 
 governor debarked with as many of the people as the boats he brought 
 with him could contain. As we came to the buhios, (D) or houses, that 
 we had seen, we found them vacant and abandoned, for the inhabitants 
 had fled that night in their canoes. One of the buhios was very large ; 
 it could hold more than three hundred persons. The rest were smaller. 
 We found a little bell of gold among some fish-nets. 
 
 The next day the governor raised ensigns for your Majesty, and 
 took possession of the country in your royal name. He made known 
 his authority, and was obeyed as governor, as your Majesty had com 
 manded. At the same time, we laid our commissions before him, and 
 he acknowledged them according to their tenor. Then he commanded 
 that the rest of the people should debark, and the horses. Of these 
 there were no more than forty-two ; the rest, by reason of the great 
 storms and the length of time that had been passed at sea, were dead, 
 and the few remaining were so lean and fatigued that for the time we 
 could have little use of them. The next day, the Indians of the town 
 came, and, although they spoke to us, yet, as we had no interpreter, 
 we did not understand them. They made us many signs and menaces, 
 and they appeared to say that we should go away from the country. 
 With this they left us, offering no interruption, and went away. 
 
ALVAR NUXEZ CABEZA DE YACA. 17 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW WE ENTERED THE LAND. 
 
 THE day following, the governor resolved to make an incursion to 
 explore the country, and see what it might contain. There went with 
 him the commissary, the assessor, and I with forty men, and among 
 them six cavalry, of which we could little avail ourselves. We took 
 our way toward the North until the hour of vespers, when we arrived 
 at a very large bay that appeared to enter far into the land. We 
 remained there that night, and the next day we returned to where the 
 ships and people lay. The governor ordered that the brig should coast 
 along the shore of Florida, and search for the harbor that Miruelo the 
 pilot had said he knew (but as yet he had failed to find it, and knew 
 not in what parts we were nor where was the port) ; that, if they did 
 not find it, she should sail for Havana, and seek the ship of which 
 Alvaro de la Cerda was in command, and, taking some provisions, they 
 should come to look for us. 
 
 The brig having left, the same party, with some persons more, 
 returned to enter the land. We kept along the shores of the bay we 
 had found, and, having gone four leagues, we captured four Indians. 
 We showed them maize, to see if they would know it, for up to that 
 time we had found no indication of any. They told us they could take 
 us to where there was some, and so they brought us to their town near 
 there at the head of the bay, and in it they showed us a little corn, 
 which was not yet fit for gathering. There we found many cases, such 
 as are used to contain the merchandise of Castile, in each of which was 
 a dead man, and the bodies were covered with painted deer skins. This 
 appeared to the commissary as a kind of idolatry, and he burned the 
 cases with the bodies. We also found pieces of linen and of woolen 
 
18 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 cloth, and bunches of feathers, which appeared to be those of New 
 Spain. We also found some samples of gold. By signs we asked the 
 Indians whence these things had come ; they signified to us that very 
 far from there was a province called Apalache, where there was much 
 gold, and an abundance of everything that we greatly valued. 
 
 Taking these Indians for guides, we departed, and, traveling ten or 
 twelve leagues, we found another town of fifteen houses, where there 
 was a large piece of ground planted with corn, which was ripe, and we 
 also found some that was already dry. After staying there two days, 
 we returned to where the controller with the men and ships were, and 
 related to him and the pilots what we had seen, and the information 
 the Indians had given us. 
 
 The next day, which was the first of May, the governor called 
 aside the commissary, the controller, the assessor, myself, and a sailor, 
 named Bartolome Fernandez, and a notary, Hieronymo de Alaniz : and 
 being together, he said to us that he desired to penetrate into the inte 
 rior of the country, and that the ships should go along the coast until 
 coming to the port which the pilots said and believed was very near 
 there, and on the way to Palmas. He desired us to give him our views. 
 
 I said it appeared to me that under no circumstances should we 
 leave the vessels until they were in a secure and inhabited port ; that 
 he should observe that the pilots were not confident of the course they 
 ought to take, and did not agree in any one thing, neither did they 
 know where we were ; that more than this, the horses were in no con 
 dition to profit us in any extremity which might occur, and, above all, 
 that we were going without being able to communicate with the Indians 
 by the use of speech, and without an interpreter where we could but 
 poorly understand ourselves with them, or learn that which we desired 
 to know of the land ; that we were about entering a country of which 
 we had no account, and had no knowledge of its character, or of what 
 there was in it, or by what people inhabited, neither did we know in 
 what part of it we were ; and that over all this, we had not food to 
 sustain us in going we knew not whither; that, with regard to the 
 stores in the ships, there could not be given as rations to each man for 
 such a journey more than a pound of biscuit and another of bacon : that 
 my opinion was we should embark and seek a harbor and a land better 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 19 
 
 than this to settle, since what we had seen of it was desolate and poor, 
 such as had never before been discovered in those parts. 
 
 To the commissary everything appeared the reverse. He said that 
 we ought not to embark, but that, always keeping the coast, we should 
 go in search of the port, for the pilots said it was only ten or fifteen 
 leagues from there, and on the way to Panuco, and that it was not 
 possible, marching ever by the shore, we should fail to come upon it, 
 because they said it entered into the land a dozen leagues ; that which 
 ever should first find it should wait for the other; that to embark would 
 be to brave the Almighty, after so many difficulties encountered since 
 leaving Castile, so many storms, and so great losses of men and ships 
 sustained before reaching there : that for these reasons we should march 
 along the coast until coming to the port, and that those in the ships 
 should take a like direction until arriving at the same place. 
 
 To all the remainder who were present this plan appeared the best 
 to adopt, except to the notary, who said that before the ships should be 
 abandoned they ought to be put into a known and safe haven, and a 
 place with inhabitants ; that this done, the governor might advance 
 inland and do his pleasure. 
 
 The governor followed his own judgment, and the counsel of the 
 others. I, seeing his determination, required, in behalf of your Majesty, 
 that he should not quit the ships before putting them in port, and making 
 them secure ; and accordingly I asked a certificate of this from the hand 
 of the notary. The governor responded that he should abide by the 
 judgment of the commissary, and that of the majority of the other 
 officers, and that I had not the right to make these requirements of 
 him. He then asked the notary to give him a certificate that, inas 
 much as there was no subsistence in that country for the maintenance 
 of a colony, nor haven for the ships, he broke up the settlement he 
 there had made, and took its inhabitants in quest of a port and land 
 that should be better. He then commanded the people who were to go 
 with him to be mustered, that they might be victualed with what was 
 necessary for the journey. After having provided them, he said to me, 
 in the hearing of those present, that, since I so much discouraged and 
 feared entering the land, 1 should sail in charge of the ships and people 
 
20 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 in them, and form a settlement, should I arrive at the port before him; 
 but from this I excused myself. 
 
 After we had separated, the same evening, he having said that it 
 did not appear to him that he could entrust the command to any one 
 else, he sent to me to say that he begged I would take it ; but finding, 
 notwithstanding he so greatly importuned me, I still refused, he asked 
 me the cause of my reluctance. I answered I rejected the responsibility, 
 as I felt certain and knew he was never more to find the ships, nor the 
 ships him ; that this might be foreseen in the slender equipment with 
 which we were entering the country ; that I desired rather to expose 
 myself to the danger which he and the rest adventured, and to pass 
 through that which he and they might pass, than to take charge of the 
 ships and give occasion to its being said that I had opposed the invasion 
 and remained behind from timidity, and my courage go in question ; 
 and that I chose rather to risk my life than put my honor in such posi 
 tion. He, seeing that with me it availed nothing, begged many persons 
 to speak with me on the subject, and they accordingly entreated me, to 
 whom I answered in the same way I had him ; and so he appointed for 
 his lieutenant of the ships an alcalde he had brought with him, whose 
 name was Caravallo. 
 
ALVAR NUSEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 21 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOW THE GOVERNOR LEFT THE SHIPS. 
 
 Ox Sunday, the first of May, the day of this occurrence, he ordered 
 to be given to each man going with him two pounds of biscuit and half 
 a pound of bacon ; and thus victualled we departed to enter the country. 
 The whole number of men we took with us was three hundred : among 
 them went the commissary friar Juan Suarez, and another friar whose 
 name was Juan de Palos, three clergymen, and the officers. We of the 
 cavalry who accompanied them were forty mounted men. We traveled 
 on the allowance we received fifteen days, without getting anything 
 more to eat than palmettos, which are like those of Andalusia. In all 
 this time we found not an Indian, nor saw a village nor house ; and 
 finally we arrived at a river, which we passed with great difficulty by 
 swimming, and on rafts. It detained us a day in crossing, because of 
 its very strong current. Arrived on the other side, there appeared to 
 us as many as two hundred Indians, more or less. The governor met 
 them, and, conversing by signs, they so insulted us with their gestures 
 that we were forced to quarrel with them. We seized upon five or 
 six, (K) and they took us to their houses, which were half a league off. 
 Near by we found a large quantity of maize in a fit state to be gathered. 
 We gave infinite thanks to our Lord for having succored us in so great 
 necessity, for we were yet young in trials, and besides the weariness in 
 which we came we were exhausted from hunger. 
 
 On the third day after our arrival, we met together, the controller, 
 the assessor, the commissary and I, and we entreated the governor that 
 he would send to look for the sea, that if possible we might find a port, 
 for the Indians said that the sea was not very distant. He answered 
 we should cease to speak of that, for it was remote ; but as it was I who 
 
22 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 mostly importuned him, he told me to go and look for it, and seek for a 
 port, and to take forty men and go on foot. So the next day I left with 
 Captain Alonso del Castillo and forty men of his company. We marched 
 until noon, when we arrived at some sands of the ocean that appeared 
 to lie a good way inland. We walked along them for a league and a 
 half, with the water half way up the leg, treading on oysters which cut 
 our feet badly and gave us much pain, until we arrived in the river we 
 had before crossed, which empties into this bay. As we could not cross 
 it by reason of the poor equipage we had for such purpose, we returned 
 to the camp and told the governor what we had discovered. Since it 
 became necessary to repass the river by the same place we had at first 
 come over, in order to examine the outlet well and see if there was a 
 port, the next day the governor ordered a captain, Velenzuela by name, 
 with sixty men and six cavalry, that he should cross the river and follow 
 it down until coming to the sea, and ascertain if there was a harbor. 
 He returned after an absence of two days, and said that he had explored 
 the bay, and that it was not deeper in any direction than to the knee, and 
 that he found no harbor. He had seen five or six canoes of Indians, 
 going from one shore to the other, wearing numerous tufts of feathers. 
 
 Having learned this much, we left the next day, going ever in 
 quest of that country which the Indians had told us of as Apalache. 
 We traveled until the seventeenth day of June, without seeing any 
 Indians who would venture to await our coming up with them, when a 
 chief approached, carried on the back of another Indian, and covered 
 with a painted deer-skin, having a great many people walking in ad 
 vance of him, plajdng on flutes of reed. (F> In this manner he came up 
 to where the governor stood, and was with him an hour. By signs we 
 gave him to understand that we were going to Apalache, and it appeared 
 to us by those he made that he was an enemy to its people and would 
 go to assist us against them. We gave him beads and hawk-bells, and 
 other articles of traffic, and he presented the governor with the skin he 
 wore, and then returned, we following him in the road he took. 
 
 That night we came to a river which was very wide and deep, and 
 the current very rapid. As we could not venture to cross with rafts, 
 we made a great canoe for the purpose, and spent a day in getting 
 over. (G) If the Indians had desired to oppose us, they could well have 
 
ALVAR NUJsEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 23 
 
 disputed our passage, for even with their help we had great difficulty. 
 One of the horsemen, Juan Vasquez by name, a native of Cuellar, impa- 
 
 4 
 
 tient of detention, entered the river, when the violence of the current 
 cast him from his horse, he grasped the reins of the bridle, and both 
 were drowned. The people of that chief, whose name was Dulchan- 
 chellin, found the body of the horse, and told us where we should find 
 the corpse in the river below. The horse afforded supper to many that 
 night. Leaving that place, the next day we arrived at the town of the 
 chief, and he there sent us maize. In the night they shot at one of our 
 men at a place where we got water, and it pleased God that he should 
 not be wounded. 
 
 The next day we departed without one of the Indians making his 
 appearance, for they had all tied; but going on our way they came in 
 sight, and prepared for battle. We called to them, but they would not 
 return, nor wait our arrival, but followed us on the road we were taking. 
 The governor left some cavalry in ambush, which, sallying upon the 
 Indians as they were about to pass, took three or four prisoners, who 
 thenceforth served us as guides. They conducted us through a country 
 very difficult to travel, and wonderful to behold. In it there are vast 
 forests, the trees astonishingly high, and so many of them were fallen 
 on the ground that they obstructed our march, in a manner that we 
 could not get on without much going round, and greatly increased toil. 
 Of those erect, many were riven from top to bottom by the bolts of 
 lightning which fall in that country, where there are often violent 
 storms and tempests. We labored through these impediments until 
 the day after Saint John s, when we came in view of Apalache, without 
 the inhabitants being aware of our approach. 
 
 We gave many thanks to God at seeing ourselves so near, believing 
 it true what had been told us of that land, and that there would be an 
 end to our hardships, which had been caused as much by the length 
 and badness of the way as by our excessive hunger; for although we 
 sometimes found maize, we oftener traveled seven or eight leagues with 
 out finding any; and besides this and the great fatigue, many had galls 
 on their shoulders from carrying arms on their backs; and more than 
 these we endured. Yet having come to the place desired, and where 
 we had been informed there was so much food and gold, it appeared to 
 us that we had already recovered in a measure from our pains and toil. 
 
24 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW WE ARRIVED AT APALACHK. 
 
 WHEN we arrived in sight of Apalache, the governor ordered that 
 I should take nine cavalry and fifty infantry, and enter the town. 
 Accordingly, the assessor and I assaulted it; and having got in, we 
 found none but women and boys, the men being absent, but they returned 
 after a little time, while we were walking about, and began to fight, 
 discharging arrows at us. They killed the horse of the assessor, but 
 fled at last, and left us. 
 
 We found a large quantity of maize fit for plucking, and much dry 
 that was housed. We found many deer-skins, and among them some 
 mantelets of thread, small and not good, with which the women partially 
 cover their persons. They had many mortars for the breaking of maize. 
 There were forty small houses in the town, made low and in sheltered 
 situations, from fear of the frequently occurring storms. Their material 
 was thatch. They were surrounded by very dense woods, large groves, 
 and many bodies of fresh water, in which there are so many and so 
 large trees fallen that they form obstructions that render the travel 
 there difficult and dangerous. 
 
ALVAR NUXEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 25 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF THE CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 THE land, for the most part, from where we came on shore to tliis 
 town and country of Apalache is level, the ground of sand and stiff 
 earth. Throughout there are immense trees and open woods, in which 
 are walnut trees, laurels, and others called liquid ambers,* cedars, 
 savins, ever-green oaks, pines, and dwarf palmettos like those of Castile. 
 There are also many lakes, both great and small, over all of it ; some 
 troublesome of fording, partly on account of their depth, and partly from 
 the great number of trees lying throughout them. Their beds are of 
 sand, and the lakes in the country of Apalache are much larger than 
 those we found before coming there. In this province are many maize 
 fields, and the houses are scattered over it in the manner that they are 
 in Yelves. There are deer of three kind. (II) rabbits, hares, bears, lions,f 
 and other wild beasts ; and among them we also saw an animal with a 
 pocket in its belly, in which it carries its young until they are old 
 enough to seek their food ; and if it happens that they should be out 
 feeding, and persons come near, the mother will not run until she has 
 gathered them in together. The country is very cold ; it has very fine 
 pastures for herds ; there are birds of many kind, geese in great quantity, 
 ducks, mallards, royal-ducks, fly-catchers, night-herons, herons, and par 
 tridges. We saw many falcons, gerfalcons, sparrow-hawks, merlins, and 
 many other birds. 
 
 Two hours after our arrival at Palache, (I> the Indians that had 
 fled from there came to us in peace, asking for their women and children, 
 
 * Sweet-gum. TR. 
 
 f A certain kind of beast not much unlike the lion of Affrica. LINSCHOTEN. 
 
26 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 which we granted ; but the governor detained a cacique, which was the 
 cause of great excitement among them. They returned the next day 
 in consequence for battle, and attacked us with such suddenness and 
 alacrity that they succeeded in setting fire to the houses in which we 
 were, but as we sallied they betook themselves to the lakes near by, and 
 because of these, and the large maize fields, we could do them no injury, 
 except in the instance of one Indian whom we killed. The day follow 
 ing others came against us from a town on the opposite side of the lake, 
 and attacked us in the same manner as the first had done, and escaped 
 in the same way, all to one, who was also slain. 
 
 We were in the town twenty-five days, in which time we made 
 three expeditions into the country, and found it very thinly peopled, 
 and difficult of travel, because of the bad passages and woods and lakes 
 that were in it. We inquired of the cacique we had kept, and of those 
 we brought with us, who were the neighbors and enemies of these 
 Indians, as to the nature of the country, the character and condition of 
 its inhabitants, and of the food and all other things concerning it. They 
 each of them answered us by himself that the largest town in all that 
 country was Apalache, and that beyond it the people were fewer and 
 poorer than here, that the land was little occupied and its inhabitants 
 much scattered, and that thenceforward there were great lakes, spacious 
 forests, vast deserts and solitudes. 
 
 We then asked them touching the region toward the south, as to 
 the towns and subsistence in it. They said that in keeping that direc 
 tion, nine days journeying to the sea, there was a town called Aute, and 
 that the Indians of it had much maize, beans, and pumpkins, and from 
 being so near the sea they had fish, and those people were their friends. 
 
 In view of the poverty of the land, and of the unfavorable accounts 
 of the population, and of everything else that we heard, and as the 
 Indians made continual war upon us, wounding our people and horses 
 at the places where they went to drink, shooting with such safety to 
 themselves that we could not retaliate because they were in the lakes, 
 and they also had killed a lord of Tescuco named Don Pedro, whom the 
 commissary had with him, we determined to leave that place and go in 
 quest of the sea and that town of Aute of which we were told. 
 
 At the termination of the twenty-five days after our arrival, we 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 27 
 
 departed, and on the first day got through those lakes and passages 
 without seeing an Indian ; but on the second day we arrived at a lake 
 of difficult crossing, for the water reached to the paps, and there were 
 in it many fallen trees. On reaching the middle we were attacked by 
 many Indians, from behind trees, who were thus covered that we might 
 not see them, and others of them were on the fallen timbers. They 
 drove their arrows at us so effectively that they wounded many of our 
 men and horses, and before we got through the lake they took from us 
 our guide. They now followed us, attempting to contest the passage 
 from it, so that our coming out was of no relief to us nor gave us any 
 better position, for when we wished to fight them they immediately 
 retired into the swamp, and thence continued to wound our men and 
 horses. Seeing this, the governor commanded those of the cavalry to 
 dismount and charge them on foot. Accordingly, the controller got off 
 with the rest, and thus engaged them. They all turned and ran into 
 the lake at hand, and thus was the passage gained. 
 
 In this conflict some of our men were wounded, for whom the good 
 armor they wore did not avail ; and there were men this day who swore 
 that they had seen two oaks, each as thick as the lower part of the leg, 
 pierced through from side to side by the arrows of the Indians; and 
 this is not so much to be wondered at, considering the force and pre 
 cision with which they shoot ; and I myself saw an arrow that had 
 entered at the foot of an elm the depth of a palm. (K) 
 
 The Indians whom we had so far seen in Florida are all archers. 
 They go naked, and as they are large of body, they appear at a distance 
 to be giants. They are a people of admirable proportions, very tall and 
 of very great activity and strength. The bows they use are as thick as 
 the arm, of eleven or twelve palms in length, which they discharge at 
 two hundred paces with so great exactness that they never miss. 
 
 Having got through this passage, at the end of a league we arrived 
 at another of the same character but worse, as it was longer being 
 half a league in extent. This we crossed freely, and without interrup 
 tion from the Indians, who, as they had spent on the former occasion 
 all their store of arrows, had nothing with which they dared to engage 
 us. Going through a similar passage the next day, I discovered the 
 trail of persons going ahead, of which I gave notice to the governor, 
 
28 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 who was coming in the rear guard, and, consequently, although the 
 Indians came upon us, they could do us no harm, as we were prepared 
 for them. After coming out to the plain they still followed us ; and 
 we turned upon them by two directions. We killed two of them, and 
 they wounded me and two or three others ; and from our coming to 
 woods we could cause them no further hurt or trouble. 
 
 In this manner we traveled eight days, but after this occurrence 
 there came no more Indians against us until within a league of the 
 place to which I have said we were going. There, while on our way, 
 the Indians came upon us without our suspicion, and fell upon the rear 
 guard. One of the gentlemen, named Avellaneda, hearing the cries of 
 his serving boy, went back to its support, when he was struck by an 
 arrow near the edge of his cuirass, and such was the wound that the 
 shaft passed almost entirely through his neck, of which he presently 
 died. We carried the corpse to Aute, where we arrived at the end of 
 nine days travel from Apalache. We found the inhabitants all gone, 
 and the houses burnt. There was a great deal of maize, many pump 
 kins and beans, all beginning to be fit for gathering. We rested there 
 two days, which being passed, the governor begged me to go and look 
 for the sea, as the Indians said it was near, and we had before discovered 
 it while on the way from a very great river, to which we had given the 
 name of el rio de la Magdalena, the river of the Magdalen. 
 
 Accordingly, I set out the next day after to look for it, in company 
 with the commissary, the captain Castillo, Andres Dorantes, and seven 
 others on horseback and fifty foot. We traveled until the hour of 
 vespers, when we arrived at a cove or entrance of the sea. We found 
 oysters in abundance, at which the men were greatly pleased, and we 
 gave thanks to God that he had brought us there. The next day, in 
 the morning, I sent twenty men that they should survey the coast, and 
 ascertain its position. They returned the next night, saying that those 
 bays and creeks were very large, and lay so far inland as made it 
 difficult to explore them agreeably to our desires, and that the sea coast 
 was very distant. 
 
 These tidings obtained, and seeing our slender equipment and 
 condition for the exploration of that coast, I went back to the governor. 
 At our arrival, we found him with many others sick, and the Indians 
 
ALVAR NUSEZ CABEZA DE YACA. 2!) 
 
 the night before had assaulted them and put them to great hardships, 
 in consequence of the malady that had come upon them, and they also 
 had killed one of the horses. I gave a report of what I had done, and 
 of the embarrassing nature of the country. We remained there that 
 day. 
 
30 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HOW WE WENT FROM AUTE. 
 
 THE next day following, we left Aute, and traveled all day before 
 coming to the place I had visited. The journey was extremely arduous, 
 for there were not sufficient horses to carry the sick, and every day these 
 grew worse, and we knew no cure. It was a piteous and painful thing 
 to witness the perplexity and distress in which we were. At our 
 arrival, we saw the little means there were for advancing farther ; there 
 was not anywhere to go, and if there had been, the people could not 
 move forward because the greater part of them were sick, and those 
 were few that could be of any use. I cease here to relate any more of 
 this, because every one may suppose what would occur in a country so 
 remote and malign, so destitute of resource, whereby either to live in or 
 go out of it ; but the most certain assistance is in God, our Lord, on 
 whom we never failed to have reliance. One thing occurred that 
 afflicted us more than all the rest, which was that of the persons on 
 horseback the greater part commenced secretly to plot, hoping to 
 secure a better fate for themselves by abandoning the governor and the 
 sick, who were in a state of weakness and prostration. But, as among 
 them there were many sons of noblemen and persons of good condition, 
 they would not permit this to go on without informing the governor and 
 the officers of your Majesty ; and as we showed them the deformity of 
 their purpose, and placed before them the moment when they should 
 desert their captain, and those who were sick and feeble, and above all, 
 the disobedience to the orders of your Majesty, they determined to 
 remain, and that whatever might happen to one should be the lot of 
 all, without any one forsaking the rest. After the accomplishment of 
 this, the governor called them all to him, and of each by himself he 
 
ALVAR NUftEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 31 
 
 asked his advice what to do to get out of a country so miserable, and 
 seek elsewhere that remedy which could not here be found, a third part 
 of the people being very sick, and the number increasing every hour ; 
 for we regarded it as certain that we should all become so, and out of it 
 we could pass only through death, which from its coming in such a 
 place was to us only the more terrible. These and many other embar 
 rassments considered, and entertaining many plans, we coincided in one 
 great project, extremely difficult to put in operation, and that was to 
 build vessels in which we might go away. This to all appeared impos 
 sible, for we knew not how to build, nor were there tools, nor iron, nor 
 forge, nor tow, nor resin, nor rigging ; finally, no one thing of so many 
 that are necessary, nor any man who had a knowledge of their manu 
 facture, and above all there was nothing to eat the while they were 
 making, nor any knowledge in those who would have to perform the 
 labor. Reflecting on all this, we agreed to think of the subject with 
 more deliberation, and the discourse dropped for that day, each going 
 his way, commending our course to God, our Lord, that he should direct 
 it as would best serve him. 
 
 The next day it was His will, that one of the company should 
 come saying, that he could make some pipes out of wood which with 
 deer-skins might be made into bellows ; and as we lived in a time when 
 anything that had the semblance of relief appeared well, we told him to 
 set himself to work. We assented to the making of nails, saws, axes, 
 and other tools of which there was such need, from the stirrups, spurs, 
 cross-bows, and the other things of iron that there were ; and we said 
 that for support while the work was going on, we would make four 
 entries into Aute, with all the horses and men that were able to go, 
 and that every third day a horse should be killed, which should be 
 divided among those that had labored on the work of the boats, and 
 those that were sick. The forays were made with the people and 
 horses that were of any use, and in them were brought back as many 
 as four hanegas of maize, but these were not got without quarrels and 
 conflicts with the Indians. (L) We caused to be collected many palmettos 
 for the benefit of the woof or covering, twisting and preparing it for use 
 in the place of tow for the boats. 
 
 We commenced to build on the fourth, with the one only carpenter 
 
32 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 in the company, and we proceeded with so great diligence that on the 
 twentieth day of September five boats were finished of twenty-two 
 cubits in length, each calked with the fibre of the palmetto. We 
 pitched them with a certain resin, which was made from pine trees by 
 a Greek named Don Theodoro ; and from the same husk of the pal 
 mettos, and from the tails and manes of the horses we made ropes and 
 rigging, and from our shirts sails, and from the savins that grew there 
 we made the oars that appeared to us to be requisite. And such was 
 the country in which our sins had cast us, that with very great trouble 
 we could find stone for ballast and anchors to the boats, since in all of 
 it we had not seen one. We tiayed the horses, and took off the skins 
 of their legs entire, and tanned them to make bottles in which we 
 might carry water. 
 
 During this time, some went gathering shell-fish in the coves and 
 creeks of the sea, at which the Indians twice attacked them, and killed 
 ten of our men, in sight of the camp, without our being able to afford 
 them succor. We found them traversed from side to side by the arrows, 
 and although some had on good armor, it did not afford sufficient pro 
 tection against the nice and powerful archery, of which I have spoken 
 before. According to the declaration and oath of our pilots, from the 
 bay to which we gave the name de la Cruz, of the Cross, to this place, 
 we had traveled two hundred and eighty leagues,* or thereabout. In 
 all this region we had seen no mountains, and had no information 
 whatever of any. 
 
 Before we embarked there died, without enumerating those de 
 stroyed by the Indians, more than forty men, of disease and hunger. 
 By the twenty-second of the month of September, the horses had been 
 consumed, one only remaining ; and on that day we embarked in the 
 following order : In the boat of the governor there went forty-nine men ; 
 in another, which he gave to the controller and the commissary, went 
 others as many. The third he gave to Captain Alonso del Castillo and 
 Andres Dorantes, with forty-eight men ; and another he gave to two 
 captains, Tellez and Penalosa, with forty-seven men. The last he gave 
 to the assessor and me, with forty-nine men. After the provision and 
 
 * In fact, about this number of geographical miles. TR. 
 
ALVAR NUStBZ CA1EZA IE VACA. 38 
 
 clothes had been taken in, there remained not over a span of the gun 
 wales above the water ; and, more than this, we went so crowded that 
 we could not move : so much can necessity do, which drove us to 
 hazard our lives in this manner, running into a sea so turbulent, with 
 not a single one that went there having a knowledge of navigation. (M) 
 
34 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HOW WE DEPARTED THE BAT OF EORSES. 
 
 THE haven we left has for its name la Baya de Cavallos. We 
 passed waist deep in water through sounds for seven days, without 
 seeing any point of the coast, and at the close of them we came to an 
 island near the land. My boat went first, and from her we saw Indians 
 coming in five canoes, which they abandoned and left in our hands. 
 The other boats, seeing us go towards them, passed ahead, and stopped 
 at some houses on the island, where we found many mullet and mullet- 
 roes dried, a great relief to the distress in which we were. After taking 
 these, we went on, and two leagues thence we discovered a strait the 
 island makes with the land, which we named San Miguel, from having 
 passed through it on his day. Having come out, we went to the coast, 
 where, with the five canoes I had taken from the Indians, we somewhat 
 improved the boats, making waist-boards, and securing them so that the 
 sides rose two palms above the water. With this we turned to travel 
 along the coast in the direction of the river Palmas, every day increasing 
 our hunger and thirst, for the provisions were very scant and getting 
 near their end, and the water was gone, because the bottles we made 
 from the legs of the horses soon rotted and were useless. Sometimes 
 we entered coves and creeks that lay far in, and found them all shallow 
 and dangerous. Thus we traveled thirty days among them, where we 
 sometimes found Indian fishermen, a poor and miserable people. 
 
 At the end of this time, while the want of water was extreme, 
 going near the coast at night we heard the approach of a canoe ; and 
 as we saw it we waited its arrival, but it would not meet us, and 
 although we called, it would not return nor wait for us. As the night 
 was dark, we did not follow it, but kept on our way. When the sun 
 
ALVAR NUXEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 35 
 
 rose we saw a small island, and went to it to see if we could find water, 
 but our labor was vain, for it had none. Being there at anchor, a heavy 
 storm overtook us, that detained us six days, without our daring to go 
 to sea ; and as it was now five days in which we had not drunk, our 
 thirst was so excessive that it put us to the extremity of drinking salt 
 water, and some of the men so greatly crazed themselves by it, that 
 directly we had four of them to die. I state this thus briefly, because 
 I do not believe there is any necessity for particularly relating the 
 sufferings and toils in which we found ourselves ; for, considering the 
 place we were in, and the little hope we had of relief, every one may 
 conceive much of what would have passed there. 
 
 Although the storm had not ceased, and we found that our thirst 
 increased, and the water killed us, we resolved to commend ourselves to 
 God, our Lord, and venture the peril of the sea, than await the certainty 
 of death which thirst imposed. Accordingly, we went out by the way 
 in which we had seen the canoe the night we came there. On this day 
 we ourselves were many times overwhelmed by the waves, and in such 
 jeopardy that there was not one who did not suppose his death certain. 
 I return thanks to our Lord, that in the greatest dangers he should 
 have shown us his favor ; for at sunset we doubled a point made by the 
 sand, and found great calm and shelter. 
 
 Many canoes came off, and the Indians who were in them spoke 
 with us, and, being unwilling to wait for us, they returned. They were 
 a people of large size, and well formed : they had no bows and arrows. 
 We followed them to their houses near by, and jumped on shore. Before 
 their houses were many clay pitchers of water, and a large quantity of 
 cooked fish, which the chief of the territories offered to the governor, 
 and then took him to his house. Their houses were of mats, and so 
 far as we observed were not movable. After we entered the house of 
 the cacique, he gave us much fish ; and we gave him of the maize we 
 brought, which the people ate in our presence. They asked for more 
 and we gave it to them, and the governor gave the cacique many 
 trinkets. While he was in the house, at the middle hour of the night, 
 the Indians fell suddenly upon us, and on those who were very sick, 
 scattered along the shore. They beset also the house in which the 
 governor was, and struck him in the face with a stone. Those of our 
 comrades who were present seized the cacique, but as his people were 
 
36 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 near they liberated him, leaving in our hands a blanket of the skins of 
 civet-martens. These are the best I think that can be found in the 
 world : they have a fragrance that is like nothing but amber and musk, 
 and strongly perceptible at a distance. We saw others there, although 
 none equal to these. Those of us who were present, seeing the governor 
 wounded, put him into his boat, and we caused the rest of the people 
 to betake themselves with him to their boats, some fifty of us remaining 
 to withstand the Indians. They attacked us thrice that night, and 
 with so great impetuosity that each time they made us retire more than 
 a stone s throw. There was not one among us who escaped injury : I 
 was wounded in the face. They had not many arrows, but had they 
 been more provided, doubtless they would have done us much harm. 
 In the last onset, the captains Dorantes, Penalosa, and Tellez put them 
 selves in ambuscade with fifteen men, and fell upon their rear in such a 
 manner that they fled and quitted us. 
 
 The next morning, I broke up more than thirty of their canoes, 
 which were useful to us for fuel against a north wind that blew, as we 
 were kept there all day in severe cold, without daring to go to sea, 
 because of the rough weather there was upon it. This having gone 
 down, we again embarked, and navigated three days. As we had taken 
 little water, and the vessels we had to hold it in were few, we were 
 brought to the last extremity of want. Following our course, we 
 entered an estuary, and being in it we saw coming a canoe of Indians. 
 We called to them, and they came to us. The governor, at whose boat 
 they first arrived, asked them for water, which they consented to give, 
 asking for something in which they might bring it, when a Christian 
 Greek, by name Dorotheo Theodoro (who has been spoken of before), 
 said that he wished to go with them. The governor and others tried 
 to dissuade him from it, but could not, so that he was determined to go, 
 whatever might happen. Accordingly he went, and took with him a 
 negro, and the Indians left two of their number as hostages. At night 
 the natives returned, and brought to us our vessels without water, and 
 did not bring the Christians they had taken ; and when those they had 
 left had been spoken to by them they tried to plunge into the sea. But 
 the men in the boat detained them, and thereupon the Indians in the 
 canoe fled, leaving us much dejected and sad with the loss of the two 
 Christians. 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 37 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 OF THE ASSAULT FROM THE INDIANS. 
 
 THE morning having arrived, there came to us many Indians in 
 canoes, asking us for their two companions who had remained in the 
 boat as hostages. The governor said he would give them up when they 
 should bring the Christians they had taken. With them had come five 
 or six chiefs, who appeared to us to be the most comely persons, of more 
 authority and condition, than any we had hitherto seen, although not 
 so large as the others of whom we have spoken. They wore the hair 
 loose and very long, and were covered with blankets of martens like 
 those we had before taken. Some of them were made up after a strange 
 fashion, and having ties of lion-skin that appeared very bravely. They 
 entreated us to go with them, and said that they would give us the 
 Christians, and water, and many other things. They continued to 
 collect about us in many canoes, attempting with them to take posses 
 sion of the mouth of that entrance ; and because of this, as well because 
 it was hazardous to remain in that land, we went out to sea, where they 
 remained by us until about mid-day. As they were not willing to 
 deliver to us the Christians, for that reason we would not give up the 
 Indians, and they commenced to throw clubs at us and to sling stones, 
 making threats of shooting arrows, although among them all we had 
 not seen more than three or four bows. While in this affray the wind 
 freshened, and they went back and left us. (N) 
 
 So we sailed that day until the middle of the afternoon, when my 
 boat, which was first, discovered a point made by the land, and against 
 a cape opposite a broad river passed. I anchored by a little island 
 which forms the point, to await the arrival of the other boats. The 
 governor did not choose to come up, but entered a bay near by, in 
 
 10 
 
38 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 which were a great many islets. We came together there, and took 
 fresh water from the sea, for the stream entered it impetuously. To 
 parch some of the corn we had brought with us, since we had eaten of 
 it raw for two days past, we went on the island ; but as we found no 
 wood we agreed to go to the river behind the point., which was one 
 league off. We were unable to get there by any efforts, so violent was 
 the current on the way, which drove us from the land while we con 
 tended and strove to gain it. The north wind, which came from the 
 shore, began to blow so strongly that it drove us to sea without our 
 being able to overcome it. Half a league out we sounded, and found 
 that with thirty fathoms we could not get the bottom, but we could not 
 be satisfied that the river was not the cause of our failure to reach it. 
 Toiling in this manner to fetch the land we navigated two days, and at 
 the end of the time, a little while before the sun rose, we saw many 
 smokes along the shore. While attempting to reach them, we found 
 ourselves in three fathoms of water, and it being dark we dared not 
 come to land ; for as we had seen so many smokes we thought some 
 danger might surprise us, and the obscurity leave us at a loss what to 
 do. So we determined to wait until the morning. When it came, the 
 boats had all lost sight of each other. I found myself in thirty fathoms, 
 and keeping my course until the hour of vespers, I observed two boats, 
 and as I drew near to them, I -found that the first I approached was 
 that of the governor, who asked me what I thought we should do. I 
 told him that we ought to join that boat which went in the advance, 
 and by no means to leave her, and the three being together that we 
 should keep on our way to where God should be pleased to direct us. 
 He answered me saying it could not be done, because the boat was far 
 to sea, and he wished to reach the shore ; that if I wished to follow him, 
 I should order the persons of my boat to take the oars and work, as it 
 was only by strength of arm that the land could be gained. He was 
 advised to this course by a captain he had with him named Pantoja, 
 who told him that if he did not fetch the land that day, in six days 
 more they would not reach it, and in that time they must inevitably 
 famish. I, seeing his will, took my oar, and the same did all who were 
 in my boat, to obey it. We rowed until near sunset; but as the 
 governor carried in his boat the healthiest men there were among the 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 39 
 
 whole, we could not by any means hold with or follow her. Seeing 
 this, I asked him to give me a rope from his boat, that I might be 
 enabled to keep up with him ; but he answered me that he would do 
 no little, if they, as they were, should be able to reach the land that 
 night. I said to him, that since he saw the little strength we had to 
 follow him and do what he had commanded, he should tell me what 
 he would that I should do. He answered me that it was no longer 
 a time in which one should command another, but that each should 
 do what he thought best to save his own life ; that he so intended 
 to act ; and saying this, he departed with his boat. As I could not 
 follow him, I steered to the other boat at sea, which waited for me, and 
 having come up with her, I found her to be the one commanded by the 
 captains Penalosa and Tellez. 
 
 Thus we continued in company, eating a daily ration of half a 
 handful of raw maize, until the end of four days, when we lost sight of 
 each other in a storm ; and such was the weather, that it was only b} 
 Divine favor that we did not all go down. Because of the winter and 
 its inclemency, the many days we had suffered hunger, and the heavy 
 beating of the waves, the people began the next day to despair in such 
 a manner that when the sun went down all who were in my boat were 
 fallen one on another, so near to death that there were few among them 
 in a state of sensibility. Among them all at this time there were not 
 five men on their feet, and when the night came there were left only 
 the master and myself who could work the boat. At the second hour 
 of the night, he said to me that I must take charge of her, for that he 
 was in such condition he believed that night he should die. So I took 
 the paddle, and after midnight I went to see if the master was alive, 
 and he said to me that he was better, and that he would take the 
 charge until day. I declare that in that hour I would have more 
 willingly died than seen so many people before me in such condition. 
 After the master took the direction of the boat, I laid down a little 
 while, but without repose, for nothing at that time was farther from me 
 than sleep. 
 
 Near the dawn of day, it seemed to me that I heard the tumbling 
 of the sea; for, as the coast was low, it roared loudly. Surprised at 
 this, I called to the master, who answered me that he believed we were 
 
40 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 near the land. We sounded and found ourselves in seven fathoms. 
 He thought we should keep the sea until sunrise ; and accordingly I 
 took an oar and pulled on the side of the land, until we were a league 
 distant, and we then gave her stern to the sea. Near the shore a wave 
 took us that knocked the boat out of the water to the distance of the 
 throw of a crowbar, (0) and by the violence of the blow nearly all the 
 people who were in her like dead were roused to consciousness. Finding 
 themselves near the shore, they began to move on hands and feet, and 
 crawled to land in some ravines. There we made fire, parching some 
 of the maize we brought with us, and where we found rain-water. 
 From the warmth of the fire the people recovered their faculties, and 
 began somewhat to exert themselves. The day on which we arrived 
 here was the sixth of November. 
 
ALVAR NU$EZ CABEZA DE VACA. 41 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OF WHAT BEFEL LOPE DE OVIEDO WITH SOME INDIANS. 
 
 AFTER the people had eaten, I ordered Lope de Oviedo, who had 
 more strength and was stouter than any of the rest, to go to some trees 
 that were near, and having climbed into one of them to survey the 
 country in which Ave were, and endeavor to get some knowledge of it. 
 He did as I bade him, and made out that we were on an island. He 
 saw that the ground was pawed up in the manner that the land is wont 
 to be where cattle range, and hence it appeared to him that this should 
 be the country of Christians ; and thus he reported to us. I ordered 
 him to return to examine much more particularly, and see if there were 
 any roads in it that were worn, and without going far, because of the 
 danger there might be. 
 
 He went, and coming to a path, he took it for the distance of half 
 a league, and found some huts without any tenants, for the Indians had 
 gone into the woods. He took from them an earthen pot, a little dog, 
 and some few mullets, and thus returned. It appearing to us that he 
 was long absent, we sent two others that they should look and see what 
 might have befallen him. They met him near by, and saw that three 
 Indians with bows and arrows followed and were calling to him, and he 
 in the same way was beckoning them on. Thus they arrived where 
 we were, the Indians remaining a little way back, seated on the same 
 bank. Half an hour after, they were supported by fifty other Indian 
 bowmen, whom, whether large or not, our fears made giants. They 
 stopped near us with the three first. It were idle to think that there 
 were any among us who could make defence ; for it would have been 
 difficult to find six that could raise themselves from the ground. The 
 assessor and I went and called them, and they came to us. We 
 
42 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 endeavored the best we could to recommend ourselves to their favor, 
 and secure their good will. We gave them beads and hawk-bells, and 
 each one of them gave me an arrow, which is a pledge of friendship. 
 They told us by signs that they would return in the morning and bring 
 us something to eat, as at that time they had nothing. 
 
ALVAR NUJsEZ CABEZA DE VAC A. 43 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HOW THE INDIANS BROUGHT US FOOD. 
 
 THE next day at sunrise, the time the Indians had appointed, they 
 came as they had promised, and brought us a large quantity of fish, and 
 certain roots that are eaten by them, of the size of walnuts, some a little 
 larger, others a little smaller, the greater part of them got from under 
 the water, and with much labor. In the evening, they returned and 
 brought us more fish, and some of the roots. They sent their women 
 and children to look at us, who returned rich with the hawk-bells and 
 beads that we gave them, and they came afterward on other days in the 
 same way. As we found that we had been provisioned with fish, roots, 
 water, and other things for which we asked, we determined to embark 
 again and pursue our course. We dug out our boat from the sand in 
 which it was buried ; and it became necessary that we should all strip 
 ourselves, and go through great exertion to launch her, for we were in 
 such state that things very much lighter sufficed to make us much 
 labor. 
 
 Thus embarked, at the distance of two cross-bow shots in the sea 
 we shipped a wave that wet us all. As we were naked, and the cold 
 was very great, the oars loosened in our hands, and the next blow the 
 sea struck us capsized the boat. The assessor and two others held fast 
 to her for preservation, but it happened to be for far otherwise, as the 
 boat carried them over, and they drowned under her. As the surf near 
 the shore was very high, a single roll of the sea threw the remainder 
 into the waves, and half drowned on the shore of the island, without 
 our losing any more than those the boat had taken under. Those of 
 us who survived escaped naked as we were born, losing all that we had, 
 and although the whole was of little value, at that time it was worth 
 
44 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 much. As it was then in the month of November, the cold severe, and 
 our bodies so emaciated that the bones might have been counted with 
 little difficulty, we had become perfect figures of death. For myself, I 
 can say that from the month of May past, I had not eaten other thing 
 than maize, and sometimes I found myself obliged to eat it unparched ; 
 for although the horses were slaughtered while the boats were being 
 built, I never could eat of them, and I did not eat fish ten times. I 
 state this to avoid giving excuses, and that every one may judge in 
 what condition we were. After all these misfortunes, there came a 
 north wind upon us, from which we were nearer to death than life. 
 Thanks be to our Lord, that, looking among the brands that we had 
 used there, we found sparks from which we made great fires. And thus 
 we were asking mercy of Him, and pardon for our transgressions, shed 
 ding many tears, and each regretting not his own fate alone, but that 
 of his comrades about him. 
 
 At sunset, the Indians, thinking that we had not gone, came to 
 seek us and bring us food ; but when they saw us thus, in a plight so 
 different from what it was formerly, and so extraordinary, they were 
 alarmed and turned back. I went toward them and called to them, 
 and they returned much frightened. I gave them to understand by 
 signs how that our boat had sunk, and three of our number been 
 drowned. There, before them, they saw two of the departed, and those 
 that remained were near joining them. The Indians, at sight of the 
 disaster that had befallen us, and our state of suffering and melancholy 
 destitution, sat down amongst us, and from the sorrow and pity they 
 felt for us they all began to lament, and so earnestly that they might 
 have been heard at a distance, and they continued so doing more than 
 half an hour. It was strange to see these men, so wild and untaught, 
 howling like brutes over our misfortunes. It caused in me, as in others, 
 an increase of feeling and a livelier sense of our calamity. Their cries 
 having ceased, I talked with the Christians, and said that if it appeared 
 well to them, I would beg these Indians to take us to their houses. 
 Some, who had been in New Spain, said that we ought not to think of 
 it, for if we should do so they would sacrifice us to their idols. But 
 seeing no better course, and that any other led to nearer and more 
 certain death, I disregarded what was said, and besought the Indians to 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 45 
 
 take us to their dwellings. They signified that it would give them 
 great delight, and that we should tarry a little that we might do what 
 we asked. Presently, thirty of them loaded themselves with wood, and 
 started for their houses, which were far off, and we remained with the 
 others until near night, when, holding us up, they carried us with all 
 haste. Because of the extreme coldness of the weather, lest any one 
 should die or fail by the way, they caused four or five large fires to be 
 placed at intervals, and at each one of them they warmed us, and when 
 they saw that we had regained some strength and warmth, they took 
 us to the next so swiftly that they hardly permitted us to put our feet 
 to the ground. In this manner, we went as far as their habitations, 
 where we found that they had made a house for us with many fires in 
 it. An hour after our arrival, they began to dance and hold great 
 rejoicing, which lasted all night, although for us there was no joy, 
 appetite, or sleep, awaiting the time they should make us victims. In 
 the morning, they again gave us fish and roots, and showed us such 
 hospitality that we were re-assured, and lost somewhat the fear of the 
 sacrifice. 
 
 12 
 
46 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HOW WE HEARD OF OTHER CHRISTIANS. 
 
 THIS day I saw an Indian with an article of traffic which I knew 
 was not one we had presented; and asking whence it had come, I was 
 answered by signs that it had been given by men like ourselves, who 
 were behind. Hearing this, I sent two Christians, and with them two 
 Indians, to show them those men. They met near by, as the others 
 were coming to look after us ; for the Indians of the place they left had 
 given them information of us. They were the captains Andres Dorantes 
 and Castillo, with all the men of their boat. Having come up to us, 
 they were surprised at seeing us in the condition we were, and very 
 much pained at having nothing to give us, for they had no other clothes 
 than what they wore. Being thus with us, they related how that on 
 the fifth day of that month their boat had capsized a league and a half 
 from there, and they had escaped without losing anything. We all of 
 us together agreed to refit their boat, and that those of us should go in 
 her who might have vigor sufficient and disposition to do so ; the rest 
 should remain until they became well enough to go as they best might 
 along the coast, and be there until God, our Lord, should be pleased to 
 lead us together into a land of Christians. Directly as we planned it, 
 we put ourselves to work. Before we threw the boat out into the water, 
 Tavera, a gentleman of our company, died; and the boat which we 
 thought to use came to its end, for not being able to float it went down. 
 
 As we were in the condition I have mentioned, the weather bois 
 terous to travel in, and to cross rivers and bays by swimming, and we 
 being without provisions or the means of a sufficient supply, yielded an 
 obedience to what necessity required, which was to winter where we 
 were. We also agreed that four men of the most robust should go to 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 47 
 
 Panuco, which we believed to be near, and if, by Divine favor, they 
 should arrive there, they could give information of how w r e remained 
 on that island, and of our sorrows and destitution. These men were 
 excellent swimmers. One of them they called Alvaro Fernandez, a 
 Portuguese, carpenter and sailor ; the second was named Mendez ; the 
 third Figueron, who was a native of Toledo; and the fourth Astudillo, 
 a native of Zafra. They took with them an Indian of the island. 
 
48 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IIOW THE FOUR CHRISTIANS DEPARTED. 
 
 THE four Christians being gone, after a few days such cold and 
 tempestuous weather succeeded that the Indians could not pull up roots, 
 the cane wears (F) in which they took fish no longer afforded any support 
 whatever, and, as the houses were very open, our people began to die. 
 Five Christians, who were of a mess on the coast, came to such 
 extremity that they ate their dead ; and the body of the last of them 
 only was found unconsumed. The names of them were these : Sierra, 
 Diego Lopez, Corral, Palacios, and Gonzalo Ruiz. The greatest change 
 in the feelings of the Indians was produced by this act. It gave rise to 
 so great censure, that, had they known it in time, doubtless they would 
 have destroyed those who survived, and we should have found ourselves 
 in the utmost embarrassment. Finally, of eighty men who arrived in 
 the two instances, there remained only fifteen alive. After this, the 
 natives of the country were visited by a sickness of the bowels, of which 
 the half of their number died. They conceived that we destroyed 
 them, and, believing it firmly, they concerted among themselves to 
 murder those of us who remained. 
 
 Now, when they came to execute their plan, an Indian who had 
 charge of me told them not to believe that we were the cause of the 
 deaths among them, since if we had such power we should also have 
 averted that fatality from so many of our people whom they had seen 
 die without our being able to minister relief; that already there 
 remained of us very few, that none of us did hurt or wrong, and that it 
 would be better to leave us unharmed. God, our Lord, willed that the 
 others should follow this opinion and counsel, and that they should be 
 hindered in their purpose. 
 
ALVAR NUftEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 49 
 
 To this island we gave the name of Malhado.* The people there 
 are large and well formed : they have no other arras than bows and 
 arrows, and in the use of them are extremely skillful. The men have 
 one of their nipples bored from side to side, and some have both ; and 
 through the holes they wear a cane the length of two palms and a half, 
 and the thickness of two fingers. They have the under lip also bored, 
 and wear in it a piece of cane the thinness of half a finger. The women 
 are accustomed to hard labor. The stay the Indians make on this 
 island is from October to the end of February. Their subsistence is the 
 root which I have spoken of, got from under the water in November 
 and December. They have wears, but take fish only in this time, and 
 afterward they live on the roots. At the end of February, they go into 
 other parts to seek sustenance, for then the roots begin to grow and are 
 not good. They love their offspring the most of any people in the 
 world, and treat them with the greatest mildness. When it occurs that 
 a son dies, the parents and kindred weep for him, and so does every 
 one ; and the wailing continues a whole year. They begin it in the 
 morning of every day before sunrise, the parents first, and after them 
 the whole town. They do the same at mid-day and at sunset. After 
 a year of mourning has passed, they perform the rites of the dead, 
 and they wash and purify themselves from the stain of smoke. They 
 lament all the defunct in this manner, excepting the aged, for whom 
 they show no regret, as they say that their season has passed, and there 
 is no enjoyment for them, and that living they would occupy the earth 
 and take the support of the young. It is their custom to bury the 
 dead, unless it be those among them who have been physicians, and 
 those they burn. While the fire kindles they are all dancing and 
 making high festivity, until the bones become calcined. After the 
 lapse of a year, the funeral rites are celebrated, and all take part in 
 them. The dust is then presented in water to the relatives to drink. 
 
 Every man has an acknowledged wife. The physicians are allowed 
 more freedom ; they may have two or three wives, among whom exist 
 the greatest friendship and harmony. When a daughter is to be mar 
 ried, from that time to the marriage, all that he who takes her to wife 
 
 * Misfortune. TR. 
 
 13 
 
50 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 kills in hunting or catches in fishing, the woman brings to the house of 
 her father, without daring to take or to taste any part of it, but victuals 
 are taken thence to the groom. In all this interval, neither her father 
 nor mother enters his house, nor can he enter theirs, nor the houses of 
 the children ; and if by chance they are in the direction of meeting, they 
 turn aside, and pass the distance of a cross-bow shot from each other, 
 carrying the head low the while, and the eyes cast on the ground ; for 
 they hold it an impropriety to see or to speak to each other. But the 
 woman has liberty to converse and communicate with the parents and 
 relatives of her future husband. The custom exists from this island to 
 the distance of more than fifty leagues inland. 
 
 There is another custom, which is, when a son or brother dies, at 
 the house where the death takes place, for three months they do not 
 go after food, but sooner famish, and their relatives and neighbors pro 
 vide what they eat. As in the time we were here a great number of 
 the natives died, in most houses there was very great hunger, because 
 of the observance of their ceremonial ; and although they who sought 
 after food worked hard, yet from the severity of the season they could 
 get but little; in consequence, the Indians who kept me left the island, 
 and passed over in canoes to the main into some bays where there were 
 many oysters. 
 
 For three months in the year they eat nothing else than these, and 
 drink very bad water. There is great want of wood, and mosquitos are 
 in great numbers. The houses are of mats, set up on masses of oyster 
 shells, which they sleep upon, and in skins, should they accidentally 
 possess them. In this way we lived until the month of April, when we 
 went to the sea shore, where we ate blackberries all the month, during 
 which time the Indians did not omit to practice their rites and 
 festivities. 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 51 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OF WHAT BEFEL US IN THE TOWN OF MALIIADO. 
 
 IN the island of which I have spoken, they wished to make us 
 physicians without examination or inquiring for our diplomas. They 
 cure by blowing upon the sick, and by the breath and the imposing of 
 hands they cast out infirmity. They ordered us that we should do this 
 likewise, and be of use to them in something. We laughed at what 
 they did, telling them that it was folly, and that we knew not how to 
 heal. In consequence, they Avithheld food from us until we should do 
 what they required. Seeing our persistence, an Indian said to me that 
 I knew not what I uttered in saying that that profited nothing which 
 he knew, for that the stones and other things which grow in the fields 
 have virtue, and that he by passing a hot stone along the stomach took 
 away pain and restored health, and that we w^io were extraordinary 
 men must of all others possess the greatest power and efficacy. At last 
 we found ourselves in so great want that we were obliged to obey, but, 
 however, without fear that we should be blamed for any failure of 
 success. 
 
 Their custom is, on finding themselves sick, to send for a physician, 
 and after the cure they give him not only all that they have, but they 
 seek among their relatives for more to give. The practitioner scarifies 
 over the seat of pain, and then sucks about the wounds. They make 
 cauteries with fire, which is a remedy among them in high repute, and 
 I have tried it on myself and been benefited by it. They afterwards 
 blow on the spot that is painful, and, having finished, the patient 
 believes that he is relieved. The method that we practiced was to 
 bless the sick, breathe upon them, and recite a Pater-noster and an 
 Ave-Maria, praying with all earnestness to God, our Lord, that he 
 
52 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 would give them health and influence them to do us some great good. 
 In his mercy, he willed that all those for whom we supplicated should, 
 directly after we made the sign of the blessed cross over them, tell the 
 others that they were sound and in health. For this the Indians treated 
 us kindly ; they deprived themselves of food that they might give to us, 
 and they presented us with some skins and some trifles. So protracted 
 was the hunger we there experienced, that many times I was three 
 days without eating anything. The natives also endured as much ; and 
 it appeared to me a thing impossible that life could be so prolonged, 
 although afterwards I saw myself in greater hunger and necessity, 
 which I shall speak of farther on. 
 
 The Indians who had Alonso del Castillo, Andres Dorantes, and 
 the others that remained alive, were of a different tongue and ancestry 
 from these, and went to the opposite shore of the main to eat oysters. 
 They remained there until the first day of the month of April, when 
 they returned. The distance is two leagues in the widest place. The 
 island is half a league in breadth and five leagues in length. All the 
 people of this region go naked. The women alone have any part of 
 their persons covered, and it is with a moss that grows on the trees. 
 The damsels cover themselves with deer-skin. They are a people 
 generous to each other of what they have. They have no chief. All 
 that are of a lineage keep together. They speak two languages ; those 
 of the one are called Capoques, those of the other Han. They have a 
 custom when they meet, or from time to time when they visit, of 
 remaining half an hour before they speak, weeping ; and this over, he 
 that is visited first rises and gives the other all he has, which is received, 
 and after a little while he carries it away with him, and often goes 
 without saying a word. They have other strange customs, but I have 
 told the principal of them, and the most remarkable, that I may pass 
 on and relate what more befel us. 
 
ALVAR NU$EZ CABEZA DE VACA. 53 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HOW THE CHRISTIANS DEPARTED FROM THE ISLAND OF MALHADO. 
 
 AFTER Dorantes and Castillo had returned to the island, they 
 brought together the Christians who were somewhat separated, and 
 found them in all to be fourteen. I, as I have said, was on the opposite 
 shore, where my Indians had taken me, and where so great sickness 
 had come upon me, that, if anything before had given me hopes of life, 
 this were enough to have entirely bereft me of them. 
 
 When the Christians heard of my condition, they gave an Indian 
 the cloak of marten skins we had taken from the cacique, as before 
 related, to pass them over to where I was that they might visit me. 
 Twelve of them crossed ; for there were two so feeble that their com 
 rades could not venture to bring them. The names of those who came 
 were Alonso del Castillo, Andres Dorantes, Diego Dorantes, Valdevieso, 
 Estrada, Tostado, Chaves, Gutierrez, Esturiano a clergyman, Diego de 
 Huelva, E.stevanico a black, and Benitez ; and when they reached the 
 land they found another, who was one of our company, named Francisco 
 de Leon. The thirteen together followed the coast along. So soon as 
 they had crossed over, my Indians told me of it, and that there remained 
 on the island Hieronymo de Alaniz and Lope de Oviedo. 
 
 But sickness prevented me from following my companions, nor did 
 I see them. I was obliged to remain with the people of the island more 
 than a year, and because of the hard work they put upon me and their 
 harsh treatment, I determined to flee from them and go to those of 
 Charruco, who inhabit the forests and country of the main, for the life 
 I led was insupportable. Beside much other labor, I had to get out 
 roots from below the water, and from among the cane where it grew in 
 the ground. From this employment I had my fingers so worn that did 
 
54 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 a straw but touch them it would draw blood. Many of the canes are 
 broken, so that they often tore my flesh, and I had to go in the midst 
 of them with only the clothing on me I have mentioned. 
 
 Accordingly, I put myself to work to get over to the other Indians ; 
 and afterward, while I was with them, affairs changed for me somewhat 
 more favorably. I set myself to trafficking, and strove to turn my 
 employment to profit in the ways I could best contrive, and by this 
 means I got from the Indians food and good treatment. They would 
 beg me to go from one part to another for things of which they have 
 need ; for, in consequence of continual hostilities, they cannot travel 
 the country nor make many exchanges. With my merchandize and 
 trade I went into the interior as far as I pleased, and I traveled along 
 the coast forty or fifty leagues. The chief of my wares was pieces of 
 sea-snails and their cones, conches that are used for cutting, and a fruit 
 like a bean, of the highest value among them, which they use as a 
 medicine and employ in their dances and festivities. There are sea- 
 beads also and other articles. Such were what I carried into the 
 interior ; and in barter for them I brought back skins, ochre with which 
 they rub and color their faces, and flint for arrow-points, cement and 
 hard canes of which to make arrows, and tassels that are made of the 
 hair of deer, ornamented and dyed red. This occupation suited me 
 well, for the travel gave me liberty to go where I wished. I was not 
 obliged to work, and was not a slave. Wherever I went, I received fair 
 treatment, and the Indians gave me to eat for the sake of my com 
 modities. My leading object, while journeying in this business, was to 
 find out the way by which I should have to go forward, and I became 
 well known to the inhabitants. They were pleased when they saw me, 
 and I had brought for them what they wanted ; and those that did not 
 know me sought and desired my acquaintance for my reputation. The 
 hardships that I underwent in this it were long to tell, as well of peril 
 and privation as of storms and cold. Many of them found me in the 
 wilderness and alone, but I came forth from them all by the great 
 mercy of God, our Lord. Because of them I ceased to pursue the busi 
 ness in winter, for it is a season in which the natives themselves retire 
 to their villages and huts, sluggish and incapable of exertion. 
 
ALYAR NUXEZ CABEZA DE VAC A. 5.3 
 
 I was in this country nearly six years,* alone among the Indians, 
 and naked like them. The reason why I remained so long was that I 
 might take with me from the island the Christian Lope de Oviedo. 
 De Alaniz, his companion, who had been left with him by Alonso del 
 Castillo, Andres Dorantes and the rest, died soon after their departure ; 
 and to get the survivor out from there, I went over to the island every 
 year, and entreated him that we should go in the way we could best 
 contrive in quest of Christians. He put me off every year, saying that 
 in the next coming we would go. At last I got him off, crossing him 
 over the bay, and over four rivers there are in the coast, as he could 
 not swim. In this way we went on with some Indians, until coming 
 to a bay a league in width and everywhere deep. From its appearance 
 we supposed it to be that which they call Espiritu Santo. (Q) We met 
 some Indiansf on the other side of it, who came to visit ours ; and they 
 told us that beyond them there were three men like us, and gave their 
 names ; and we asked them for the others, and they told us that they 
 were all dead of cold and hunger ; that the Indians farther on, of whom 
 they were, had for their diversion killed Diego Dorantes, Valdevieso, 
 and Diego de Huelva, because they left one house for another ; (R) and 
 that other Indians, their neighbors, with whom Captain Dorantes now 
 was, had, in consequence of a dream, killed Esquivel and Mendez. (S) 
 We asked them how the living were situated, and they answered us 
 that they were very ill used, for that the boys and some of the Indian 
 men were very idle, and of cruelty gave them severe kicks, cuffs, and 
 blows with sticks ; and that such was the life they led among them. 
 
 We desired to be informed of the country ahead, and of the sub 
 sistence in it ; and they said there was nothing in it to eat, and was 
 thin of people, who suffered of cold, having no skins or other thing to 
 cover them. They told us also if we wished to see those three 
 Christians, two days from that time the Indians who had them would 
 come to eat walnuts a league from there on the margin of that river ; 
 and that we might know what they had told us of the ill usage to be 
 true, they slapped my companion and beat him with a stick, and I was 
 not left without my portion. They frequently threw fragments of mud 
 
 * From 1528 to 1533. Tn. f Qucvenes. TR. 
 
56 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 at us, and every day they put their arrows to our hearts, saying that 
 they were inclined to kill us in the way that they had destroyed our 
 friends. Lope Oviedo, my comrade, in fear said that he wished to go 
 back with the women who had crossed the bay with us, the men having 
 remained some distance behind. I contended strongly with him against 
 his returning, and I urged many objections, but in no way could I keep 
 him. So he went back, and I remained alone with those savages. 
 They are called Quevenes, and those with whom he returned Draguanes. 
 
ALVAR NUNEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 57 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HOW THE INDIANS CAME, AND ANDRES DORANTES, CASTILLO, AND ESTEVANICO. 
 
 Two days after Lope de Oviedo had gone, the Indians, who had 
 Alonso del Castillo and Andres Dorantes, came to the place of which 
 we had been told, to eat walnuts. These are ground together with a 
 kind of small grain, and are the subsistence of these people three months 
 in the year without other thing ; but even the nuts they do not have 
 every season, for in some years the trees produce and in others do not. 
 The fruit is the size of that of Galicia; the trees very large and numerous. 
 
 An Indian told me of the arrival of the Christians, and that if I 
 wished to see them I must steal away and flee to the point of a wood to 
 which he directed me, and that as he and others, kindred of his, would 
 pass by to visit those Indians, they would take me with them to the 
 spot where the Christians were. I determined to attempt this and trust 
 to them, as they spoke a language distinct from that of the others.* I 
 did so, and the next day they left and found me in the place that had 
 been pointed out, and accordingly took me with them. 
 
 When I arrived near their abode, Andres Dorantes came out to see 
 who it could be, for the Indians had told him that a Christian was 
 coming. When he saw me his astonishment was great, as he had for 
 many a day considered me dead, and the Indians had likewise said that 
 I was. We gave many thanks to God at seeing ourselves together, and 
 this was a day to us of the greatest pleasure that we had enjoyed in 
 life. Having come to where Castillo was, they inquired of me where I 
 was going, and I told them that my purpose was to reach the land of 
 Christians, and that I was then in search and pursuit of it. Andres 
 
 K They appear to have been Susolas. Ta. 
 is 
 
58 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 Dorantes said that for a long time he had entreated Castillo and Este- 
 vanico to go forward, but that they dared not venture, because they 
 knew not how to swim, and they greatly dreaded the rivers and bays 
 which they should have to cross, as in that country there are many. 
 Thus the Almighty had been pleased to defend me amidst many trials 
 and diseases, and to conduct me in the end to the fellowship of those 
 who had shunned me, that I might lead them over the bays and rivers 
 that obstructed our progress. They advised me in no way to give the 
 Indians a suspicion of my desire to go on, else they would destroy me ; 
 and that for success it would be necessary for me to remain quiet until 
 the end of six months, when is the season in which these Indians go to 
 another part of the country to eat prickly-pears ; and that people would 
 arrive there from parts farther on who bring bows to barter and 
 exchange,* with whom, after making our escape, we should be able to 
 go on their return. Having consented to this plan, I remained. 
 
 The pear is the size of a hen s egg, vermilion and black in color, 
 and of agreeable flavor. The Indians eat of it three months in the 
 year and have nothing else. 
 
 I was given as a slave to an Indian, with whom was Dorantes. 
 He was blind of an eye, as were also his wife and son, and also another 
 who was with him; so that they were of a fashion all blind. These 
 are called Marianes ; and Castillo was with another, a neighboring people 
 called Yguases. 
 
 While here the Christians related to me how they had left the 
 island of Malhado, and had found the boat wrecked on the sea shore, 
 in which the controller and the friars had sailed ; and that going along 
 crossing the rivers, which are four, very large and of rapid current, their 
 boats were swept away and carried to sea, where four of their number 
 were drowned ; that thus they proceeded until they crossed the bay, 
 getting over it with great difficulty, and fifteen leagues thence they came 
 to another. By the time they had reached this they had lost two com 
 panions in the sixty leagues they had traveled, and those that remained 
 were near death ; and in all the way they had eaten nothing but crabs 
 and rock-weed. Having arrived at this last bay, they found Indians in 
 it eating mulberries, who, when they saw them went to an opposite cape. 
 
 * The Avavares. TR. 
 
ALVAR NU^EZ CABEZA DE VACA. 59 
 
 While contriving and seeking for some means to cross the bay, 
 there came over to them an Indian* and a Christian, whom they recog 
 nized to be Figueroa, one of the four we had sent forward from the 
 island of Malhado. He there recounted to them how he and his 
 companions had got as far as this place, when two of them and an 
 Indian had died of cold and hunger ; for they had had, and had been 
 exposed to, the most inclement of seasons. He and Mendez had been 
 taken by the Indians, and while with them his associate had fled, going 
 as well as he could in the direction of Panuco, and the natives had 
 pursued and put him to death. 
 
 While living with these Indians, he learned from them that there 
 was a Christian among the Mariames, who had come over from the 
 opposite side ; and that they had found him among the Quevenes. This 
 was Hernando de Esquivel, a native of Badajos, who had come in 
 company with the commissary .f From him he heard the end to which 
 the governor, the controller, and the others had come. 
 
 lie told him that the controller and the friarsj had upset their 
 boat at the confluence of the rivers ; and that the boat of the governor, 
 moving along the coast, came with its people to land. The governor 
 went in the boat until arriving to that great bay, where he took in the 
 people and crossed them to the opposite point, and returned for the 
 controller, the friars, and the rest. And he related how being disem 
 barked, the governor had recalled the commission of the controller, 
 which he held as his lieutenant, and assigned the duties to a captain 
 with him named Pantoja: that the governor stayed the night in his 
 boat, and would not come on shore, and an officer remained with him, 
 and a page who was unwell, there being no water or thing to eat on 
 board ; that at midnight, the boat having only a stone for an anchor, 
 the north wind blew so strongly that it drove her to sea, no one seeing 
 it, and they never knew more of their commander. (T) 
 
 The others went along the coast, and, as they were arrested by a 
 wide extent of water, they made rafts with much labor, on which they 
 crossed to the opposite shore. Going on, they arrived at a point of 
 
 * One of the Qucvenes. Tn. f Esquivel seems to have been one of the friars. Tn. 
 
 | One of them was the commissary, Juan Suarcz. TR. 
 
CO THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 woods on the banks of the water where there were Indians, who, as 
 they saw them coming, put their houses into their canoes and went over 
 to the opposite shore. The Christians, in consideration of the season, 
 for it was now in the month of November, stopped at this wood, where 
 they found water and fuel, some crabs and shellfish. They soon began, 
 one by one, to die of cold and hunger; and more than this, Pantoja, 
 who was now lieutenant, used them severely, which Soto Mayor (brother 
 of Vasco Porcallo, he of the island of Cuba), who had come with the 
 armament as camp-master, not being able to bear, he had a struggle 
 with him, and, giving him a blow with a club, Pantoja was instantly 
 killed. 
 
 Thus their number went on diminishing. The living dried the 
 flesh of them that died, and the last that died was Soto Mayor, and 
 Esquivel preserved his flesh, and, feeding on it, sustained existence until 
 the first of March, when an Indian of those that had fled coming to see 
 if they were alive, took Esquivel with him. While he was in the 
 possession of this Indian, Figueroa saw him, and learning from him all 
 that has been related, he besought him to come with him, that together 
 they might pursue the way to Panuco ; to which Esquivel would not 
 consent, saying that he had understood from the friars that Panuco had 
 been left behind ; and so he remained there, and Figueroa went to the 
 coast where he was accustomed to live.* (U) 
 
 * Both at the time living among the Quevenes. TR. 
 
ALVAR NUftEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 61 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OF THE ACCOUNT HE GAVE OF ESQUIVEL. 
 
 THIS account was all given by Figueroa, according to the relation 
 he had received from Esquivel, and from one to another it came to me ; 
 whence may be seen and understood the fate of the armament, and the 
 particular fortunes of the greater part of the people. Figueroa said, 
 moreover, that if the Christians should at any time go in that direction, 
 it were possible they might see Esquivel, for that he knew he had fled 
 from the Indian with whom he was, to the Mariames, who were 
 neighbors. 
 
 After he had done telling the story, he and the Asturian attempted 
 to go to other Indians farther on; but as soon as they who had them 
 discovered it, they followed after and beat them severely, and they 
 stripped the Asturian and shot an arrow through his arm. Finally, 
 they escaped by flight; and the other Christians remained, and prevailed 
 on the Indians* to receive them as slaves. In their service, they were so 
 much abused as slaves never were before, nor men of any condition 
 have ever been. Not content with frequently buffeting them, striking 
 them with sticks, and pulling out their beard for amusement, they killed 
 three of the six for only going from one house to another. These were 
 the persons I have named before: Diego Dorantes, Valdeviesso, and 
 Diego de Huelva : and the three that remained looked for the same fate. 
 Not to suffer this life, Andres Dorantes fled, and passed to the Mariames, 
 which are those among whom Esquivel had stopped. They told him 
 how they had had Esquivel there, and he had wished to run away 
 because a woman dreamed that a son of hers would kill him; and that 
 
 * The Quevenes. TR. 
 
62 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 they followed on after and slew him. They showed Andres Dorantes 
 his sword, beads, and book, and other things that had been his. 
 
 Thus they take life in obedience to their custom, arid they destroy 
 even their male children because of dreams. They cast away their 
 daughters at birth, and allow them to be eaten by dogs. The reason of 
 their doing this, as they state, is because all the nations of the country 
 are their foes, and with them they have continual war, and if they were 
 to marry away their daughters, they would so greatly multiply their 
 enemies that they would be overcome and made slaves : that thus they 
 prefer to destroy all, than that from them should be born a single enemy. 
 We asked why they did not themselves marry them; and they also said 
 it was a disgustful thing to marry them among their relatives, and that 
 it was far better to kill than to give them either to their kindred or 
 their foes. This custom is practiced by these, and others their neigh 
 bors, the Yguazes, and not by any other people of that country. 
 
 When the men are about to marry, they buy their women of their 
 enemies ; and the price that is paid for a wife is a bow, the best that 
 can be got, with two arrows; and if it so happens that the suitor has 
 no bow, then a net a fathom in length, and another in breadth. They 
 kill their male children and buy those of strangers. The marriage state 
 continues no longer than while the parties are satisfied, and they sepa 
 rate for the slightest cause. Dorantes was among this people, and after 
 a few days he escaped. 
 
 Castillo and Estevanico went inland to the Yeguazes. This people 
 are universally good archers, and of fine symmetry, although not so 
 large as those we had left; and they have a nipple and a lip bored. 
 Their support is principally roots, of two or three kinds, and they look 
 for them over the face of all the country. These are a poor food, and 
 gripe the persons that eat them. They require two days in roasting : 
 many of them are very bitter, and withal difficult to be dug. The} are 
 sought after the distance of two or three leagues, and so great is the 
 want these people experience that they cannot get through the year 
 without them. Occasionally they kill deer, and at times they take fish, 
 but the quantity is so small, and the famine so great, that they eat 
 spiders, and the eggs of ants, worms, lizards, salamanders, snakes and 
 vipers that kill whom they strike; and they eat earth, and wood, and 
 
ALVAR NU^EZ CABEZA DE VACA. 63 
 
 all that there is, the dung of deer, and other things that I omit to 
 mention : and I honestly believe that if there were stones in that land 
 they would eat them. They save the bones of the fish they consume, 
 of snakes and other animals, that they may afterward pound them 
 together and eat the powder. Among them the men bear no burthens, 
 nor carry any things of weight, but such are borne by women and old 
 men, who are the persons of the least esteem. They have not so great 
 love for their children as those we have before spoken of.* There are 
 some among them who are accustomed to sin against nature. The 
 women work very hard, and do a great deal; for in the twenty-four 
 hours they have only six of repose, and the rest of the night they pass 
 in heating the ovens to bake those roots they eat. At sunrise they 
 begin to dig them, and to bring wood and water to their houses, and get 
 in readiness other things that may be necessary. The majority of them 
 are great thieves; for although they are free to divide, on turning the 
 head even a son or a father will take what he can. They are great 
 liars, and also great drunkards, which they become from the use of a 
 certain liquor. 
 
 They are so accustomed to running, that without rest or fatigue 
 they follow a deer from morning to night. In this way they kill many, 
 for they pursue them until tired down, and sometimes they overtake 
 them in the chase. Their houses are of matting, placed upon four 
 hoops ; they carry them on their backs, and they remove every two or 
 three days in search of food. They plant nothing from which they 
 may profit. They are a merry people, considering the hunger they 
 suffer; and notwithstanding it they never cease to dance nor to observe 
 their festivities and ceremonies. To them the happiest part of the 
 year is the season of eating prickly-pears ; for then they have hunger 
 no longer, and pass all the time in dancing, and they eat day and night. 
 While these last, they squeeze open and set them to dry, and after they 
 are dry they put them in baskets like figs. These they keep to eat on 
 the way back. The peelings they beat to powder. 
 
 It occurred to us many times while we were among this people, 
 and there was no food, to be three or four days without eating, when 
 
 * The people of Malhado. TR. 
 
64 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 they, to revive our spirits, would say to us not to be sad, that soon there 
 would be pears and we should eat a plenty, and drink of the juice, and 
 that our bellies would be very big, and we should be content and joyful, 
 having no hunger. From the time they first told us this, to that at 
 which the earliest were ripe enough to be eaten, there was an interval 
 of five or six months ; so that we tarried until the lapse of this period, 
 and when the season came we went to eat pears. 
 
 We found mosquitoes of three sorts, and all of them abundant in 
 every part of the country. They poison and inflame, and during the 
 greater part of the summer they gave us great annoyance. As a pro 
 tection against them we made many fires, encircling the people, using 
 rotten and wet wood to produce smoke without flame. This remedy 
 occasioned us another trouble ; and all night long we did nothing but 
 shed tears from the smoke that came into our eyes, besides feeling intense 
 heat from the many fires. Those of the interior have a different method, 
 as intolerable and even more so than the one I have spoken of, which 
 is to go with the brands in their hands firing the plains and forests 
 within their reach that the mosquitoes may fly away, and at the same 
 time to drive out lizards and other like things from the earth to eat. 
 They are accustomed to kill deer also by surrounding them with fires. 
 They take the pasturage from cattle by burning, that necessity may 
 drive them to seek it in such places as it is wished they should go to. 
 They encamp only where there are wood and water, and sometimes 
 they all carry supplies of these when they go to hunt deer, which most 
 usually are found where there is neither. On the day of their arrival, 
 they kill the deer and other animals that they can, and consume the 
 water in cooking and the fires they may need to relieve them of mos 
 quitoes. They remain the next day to get something to support them 
 on their return ; and when they leave, such is their state from the 
 mosquitoes that they appear as if they had the affliction of holy Lazarus. 
 In this manner do they appease their hunger two or three times in the 
 year, and at the great cost I have mentioned. From having gone 
 through it myself, I can state that no torment that is known in this 
 world can equal it. 
 
 Inland there are many deer, and birds and beasts other than those 
 I have spoken of. Cattle come as far as this. I have seen them three 
 
ALVAR NU$EZ CABEZA DE VACA. 65 
 
 times, and eaten of their meat. I think they are about the size of those 
 of Spain. They have small horns like the cows of Morocco, and the 
 hair very long and flocky like that of the merino. Some are light 
 brown (pardillas) and others black. To my judgment the flesh is finer 
 and fatter than that of this country. The Indians make blankets of 
 the hides of those not full grown, and of the larger they make shoes 
 and bucklers. They come as far as the sea coast of Florida in a direc 
 tion from the north, and range over a district of more than four hundred 
 leagues, and in the whole extent of plain over which the} run, the 
 people that inhabit near there descend and live on them, and scatter a 
 vast many skins throughout the country. (V) 
 
66 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OF HOW THE INDIANS SEPARATED US. 
 
 WHEN the six months had expired which I had to spend with the 
 Christians to put in execution the plan we had concerted, the Indians 
 went after pears, the place at which they were to be had being more 
 than twenty leagues off. Now when we were at the point of flight, the 
 Indians among whom we were quarreled about a woman; and they 
 struck, beat, and bruised each other, and in consequence of their anger 
 each took his lodge and went his way : whence it became necessary that 
 the Christians there should also separate, and in no way could we come 
 together until another year. 
 
 In this time, I passed a very hard life, caused as much by hunger 
 as the treatment I received, which was such that three times I was 
 obliged to run from the masters I had, and each time they went in 
 pursuit and endeavored to kill me; but God, our Lord, in his mercy 
 chose to preserve and protect me from them ; and when the season of 
 ripe pears returned we again came together in the same place. After 
 we had arranged our escape, and appointed a time, that same day the 
 Indians separated us, and all went back. I told my comrades that I 
 would wait for them among the pear plants until the moon should be 
 full. This day was the first of September, and the first of the moon; 
 and I said to them that if in this time they did not come, I would leave 
 them and go alone. So we parted, and each went with his Indians. I 
 remained with mine until the thirteenth day of the moon, having deter 
 mined to flee to others when it should be full. (W) 
 
 At this time, Andres Dorantes arrived with Estevanico, and informed 
 me that they had left Castillo with other Indians near by, called Ana- 
 gados; (X) that they had encountered great obstacles, and had wandered 
 
ALVAR NUJsEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 67 
 
 about lost; that the next day the Indians among whom we were would 
 move to where Castillo was, and were going to unite with those who 
 held him, and become friends; for until this time they had been at war, 
 and that in this way we should recover Castillo. 
 
 We had thirst all the time we ate the pears, and to quench this we 
 drank their juice. We caught it in a hole we made in the earth, and 
 when it was full we drank of it until satisfied. It is sweet, of the 
 color of must; and they collect it in this manner for lack of vessels. 
 There are many kind of pears, and among them are some very good, 
 although they all appeared to me to be so, for hunger never gave me 
 leisure to choose them, nor to reflect upon which were the best. 
 
 Almost all these people drink rain-water, which lies about in spots; 
 for although there are rivers, as the Indians never have fixed habitations 
 they have no familiar or noted places for getting water. Throughout 
 the country are very extensive and beautiful plains, having good pas 
 turage for animals; and I think it would be a very fruitful country, if 
 it were worked and inhabited by civilized men. We saw no mountains 
 in any part of it. 
 
 These Indians told us that there was another people next in advance 
 of us, called Camones, living toward the coast, and that they had killed 
 all the people that came in the boat of Penalosa and Tellex, who had 
 arrived so feeble that even while killing them they could offer no resist 
 ance, and were all destroyed. We were shown clothes and arms that 
 had been theirs, and were told that the boat lay there stranded. This, 
 the fifth boat, had remained till then unaccounted for. We have already 
 stated how the boat of the governor had been carried out to sea, and 
 that of the controller and the friars had been cast away on the coast, of 
 which Esquivel had narrated the fate of the men. We have once told 
 how the two boats in which Castillo, I, and Dorantes came, foundered 
 near the island of Malhado. 
 
68 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 OF HOW WE FLED. 
 
 THE second day after we had moved, we commended ourselves to 
 God and set forth with speed, trusting that, notwithstanding the lateness 
 of the season and the pears were about ending, with the mast that 
 remained in the woods we might still be enabled to travel over a large 
 district. Hurrying on that day in great dread lest the Indians might 
 come upon us, we saw some smokes, and going in that direction we 
 arrived at them after vespers, and found an Indian. As he discovered 
 us coming toward him he ran away, not being willing to wait for us. 
 We sent the negro after him, when he stopped as he saw him coming 
 alone. The negro told him that we were seeking for the people that 
 made those fires. He answered that their houses were near by, and he 
 would guide us to them. So we followed him, and he ran to give 
 knowledge of our approach, and at sunset we saw the houses. Before 
 our arrival, at the distance of two crossbow shots from them, we found 
 four Indians, who waited for us and received us well. We said to them, 
 in the language of the Mariames, that we were going to look for them. 
 They were evidently pleased with our company, and took us to their 
 dwellings. Dorantes and the negro they lodged in the house of a 
 physician, and myself and Castillo in that of another. 
 
 These people speak a different language, and are called Avavares. 
 They are the same who used to carry bones to those with whom we 
 formerly lived,* and who went to traffic with them. Although they 
 are of a different nation and tongue, they understand the language of 
 the others. They had arrived that day, with their lodges, at the place 
 
 * The Mariames. TR. 
 
ALVAR NUJfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 69 
 
 where we found them. The inhabitants directly brought a great many 
 pears to us, having soon heard of our presence, and of how we cured, 
 and the wonders which our Lord worked by us, which, although there 
 had been no others, were sufficiently great to open a way to us through 
 a poor country such as this, and to afford us people where oftentimes 
 there are none, and to lead us through imminent dangers, not permitting 
 us to be killed, sustaining us under great want, and putting into those 
 nations for us the heart of kindness, as we shall relate hereafter. 
 
 ItS 
 
70 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 OF HOW WE HERE CURED SOME OF THE AFFLICTED. 
 
 THAT same night of our ai-rival there came some Indians to Castillo 
 and told him that they had great pain in the head, begging him to cure 
 them. After he had made over them the sign of the cross, and com 
 mended them to God, instantly they said that all the pain had left; 
 and they went to their houses and brought us many pears, and a piece 
 of venison, a thing to us little known. As the report of his performance 
 spread, there came many others to us that night sick, that we should 
 heal them, and each brought with him a piece of venison, until the 
 quantity was so great we knew not where to dispose of it. We gave 
 many thanks to God, for every day went on increasing his compassion 
 and his gifts. After the sick were attended to, they began to dance and 
 enact their ceremonial, rejoicing until the morning at sunrise ; and 
 because of our arrival their festivities were continued for three days. 
 
 When they were ended, we asked the Indians about the country 
 farther on, and the people we should find in it, and of the subsistence 
 there. They answered us that throughout all that country there was 
 abundance of prickly pear plants, but that the fruit was gone, and there 
 were no peaple, for they had gathered the pears, and all of them had 
 returned to their homes. They said that their country was very cold, 
 and few skins were there. Reflecting on the cold, and that it was 
 already winter, we resolved to pass the season with these people. 
 
 Five days after our arrival, all the Indians went off, taking us with 
 them to gather more pears, at a place where there were other nations, 
 speaking different tongues. Having walked five days in great hunger, 
 since on the way there were no pears or other fruit, we arrived at a 
 river, where we put up our houses. This done, we went to seek the 
 
ALVAR NUSEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 71 
 
 fruit of certain trees which is like a pea. As there are no paths in the 
 country, I was detained some time in the search. The others returned 
 and left me by myself, and I, coming to look for them in the dark, got 
 lost. I thank God that I found a burning tree, and in the warmth of 
 it I passed through the cold of that night. In the morning, I loaded 
 myself with sticks, and returned to seek them. In this manner, I wan 
 dered five days, ever with my torch and load, for if the wood had failed 
 me where none could have been found, as many parts are without any, 
 I should have had to seek for sticks elsewhere, and had no fire to kindle 
 them. This was the only protection I had against the cold while walk 
 ing, for I was naked as I was born. I prepared myself for the night 
 by going to the low woods near the rivers, and stopping in them before 
 sunset. I there made a hole and threw in wood, which the trees abun 
 dantly afford, and collected it for fuel in good quantity from the dry 
 and fallen. About the hole I made four fires in the form of a cross, 
 which I watched and made up from time to time. I also collected some 
 bundles of the coarse straw that there abounds, with which I covered 
 me in the hole. In this manner I protected myself from the cold at 
 night. On one of these occasions while I slept, the fire fell upon the 
 straw in which I was, and it had begun to blaze so rapidly that not 
 withstanding the haste I made to get out, I carried some marks on my 
 hair of the danger to which I had been exposed. All this while I 
 tasted not a mouthful, nor did I find anything I could eat. As my feet 
 were bare, I bled a great deal. Through the mercy of God to me, the 
 wind in all this time did not blow from the north, otherwise I should 
 have died. 
 
 At the end of the fifth day, I arrived at the margin of a river 
 where I found the Indians, who, with the Christians, had considered 
 me dead, and supposed that I had been stung by a viper. All were 
 rejoiced to see me, but the most so were my companions. They said 
 that up to that time they had struggled with great hunger, which was 
 the reason of their not having sought me. That night they all gave 
 me of the pears they had, and the next morning we set out for where 
 we found a large quantity, with which we all satisfied our great neces 
 sity, the Christians rendering thanks to our Lord that he had ever given 
 us his assistance. 
 
72 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 OF HOW THE NEXT DAT THEY BROUGHT TO US OTHER SICK. 
 
 IN the morning of the next day, many Indians came, and brought 
 five persons who had cramps and were very unwell. They came for 
 Castillo that he might cure them. Each offered him his how and 
 arrows, which he received. At sunset he blessed them, and commended 
 them to God, our Lord ; and we all prayed to Him the best we could 
 that He would send them health, for that He knew there was no other 
 way than through Him in which these people would aid us, and we 
 could come forth from this unhappy existence. He did it so mercifully 
 that, the morning having come, all got up as well and sound and were 
 as strong -as if they had never had a disorder. It caused great admira 
 tion, and inclined us to render many thanks to God, our Lord, whose 
 goodness we now clearly beheld, and which gave us firm hopes that he 
 would liberate and bring us to where we might serve him. For myself 
 I can say that I ever had trust in His providence that he would bring 
 me out from that captivity, and thus I ever spoke of it to my companions. 
 The Indians being gone, and having taken their friends with them 
 in health, we departed for a place at which others were eating pears. 
 These are called Cutalches and Malicones, who speak other tongues. 
 Adjoining them were others called Coayos and Lusolas, and on the 
 opposite side others called Atayos, ( ^ } who were at war with the Lusolas, 
 and exchanged arrow-shots daily. As through all the country they 
 talked but of the wonders which God, our Lord, worked through us, 
 persons came from many parts to seek us that we might cure them. 
 At the end of the second day after our arrival, there came to us some of 
 the Lusolas, and besought Castillo that he would go to cure one wounded 
 and others sick : and they said that among them there was one very 
 
ALVAR NUXEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 73 
 
 near his end. Castillo was a timid practitioner, and chiefly so in the 
 cases most fearful and dangerous; for he believed that his sins must 
 weigh upon him, and at some time hinder him from performing cures. 
 The Indians told me to go and heal them ; for they liked me well, and 
 remembered that I had ministered to them in the walnut grove, for 
 which they had given us nuts and skins, and it occurred when I first 
 joined the Christians. So I had to go with them, and Dorantes accom 
 panied me with Estevanico. When I came near their huts, I perceived 
 that the sick man we went to heal was dead ; for there were many per 
 sons around him weeping, and his house was prostrate, which is a sign 
 that the one who dwelt in it is dead. When I arrived, I found the eyes 
 of the Indian rolled up, he was without pulse, and having all the 
 appearances of death, as they seemed to me, and as Dorantes said. I 
 removed a mat with which he was covered, and I supplicated our Lord 
 as fervently as I could that he might be pleased to give health to him, 
 and to all the rest that might have need of it. After he had been 
 blessed and breathed upon many times, they brought me his bow, and 
 gave me a basket of pounded pears. 
 
 They took me to cure many others who were sick of a stupor, and 
 they presented me with two more baskets of pears, which I gave to the 
 Indians that had accompanied us. We then went back to our lodgings. 
 Those to whom we gave the pears tarried, and returned to their houses 
 at night, and reported that he who had been dead and for whom I had 
 wrought before them, had got up hale, and had walked, and eaten, and 
 spoken with them, and that all to whom I had ministered were well 
 and very merry. This caused great wonder and fear, and in all the 
 land they spoke of nothing else. All those to whom the fame of it 
 reached came to seek us, that we should cure them, and bless their 
 children. 
 
 When the Indians, the Cutalchiches* which were in company with 
 ours, were about to return to their country, before they went they left 
 us all the pears they had for their journey, without keeping one : and 
 they gave us flints a palm and a half in length, with which they cut, 
 
 * The same as Cutalches. The Indian names are given in every instance as they are 
 in the original edition TR. 
 
 19 
 
74 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 and which are of high value among them. They begged that we would 
 remember them, and pray to God that they might always be well ; and 
 we promised it. They left us the most satisfied beings in the world, 
 having given us all the best they had. 
 
 We remained with these Indians, the Avavares, eight months, 
 which we reckoned by the number of moons. In all this time, the 
 Indians came to seek us from many parts, and they said that most truly 
 we were children of the sun. Dorantes and the negro had to this time 
 not attempted to practice, but because of the great solicitation made by 
 those coming from different parts to find us, we all became physicians, 
 although in being venturous and bold I was the most remarkable. No 
 one for whom we performed but told us he was left well ; and so great 
 confidence had they that they would become healed if we should but 
 administer to them, that they believed that whilst we remained there 
 none of them could die. These and the rest of the people behind 
 related to us an extraordinary circumstance, and, by the way they 
 counted to us, there appeared to have been fifteen or sixteen years since 
 it had occurred. 
 
 They said that a man wandered through that country whom they 
 called bad-thing, that he was small of body and had beard, but they 
 never could distinctly see his features. When he came to the house 
 where they were, their hair stood up and they trembled. Presently 
 there shone at the door of the house a blaxing torch, and then he entered 
 and seized whom he chose of them, and giving him three great gashes 
 in the side with a very sharp flint the width of the hand and two palms 
 in length, he put his hand through and drew forth the entrails, from 
 one of which he would cut off a portion more or less the length of a 
 palm, and throw it on the embers. Then he would give three gashes 
 to an arm, and the second cut on the inside of the elbow, and would 
 sever the limb. A little after this, he would begin to unite it, and, 
 putting his hands upon the wounds, these would instantly become 
 healed. They said that oftentimes, while they danced, he appeared 
 among them in the dress of a woman, and at others in that of a man ; 
 that when it pleased him he would take up a buhio, or house, and, 
 lifting it high, after a little he would come down with it in a heavy fall. 
 They also told us that many times they offered him victuals, but that 
 
ALVAR NUXEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 75 
 
 he never ate ; that they asked him whence he came, and where was his 
 home, and he showed them a fissure in the earth and said that his 
 house was there below. These things that they told us of we much 
 laughed at and ridiculed ; and they, seeing that we did not believe them, 
 brought to us many of those they said he had seized, and we saw the 
 marks of the gashes he had made in the places according to the manner 
 they had described. We told them that he was an evil one, and in the 
 best way we could, we gave them to understand that, if they would 
 believe in God, our Lord, and become Christians like us, they would 
 have no fear of him, nor would he dare to come and inflict on them 
 these injuries; and that they might be certain that while we remained 
 in the land he would not dare to appear in it. At this they were 
 delighted, and lost much of their dread. 
 
 These told us that they had seen the Asturian and Figueroa, with 
 Indians farther along the coast, whom we had called los de lo$ Jiiyos, the 
 people of the figs. They are all ignorant of time either by the sun or 
 moon, nor do they reckon by the month or year ; but they better know 
 and understand the differences of the seasons, when the fruits come to 
 ripen, the fish to die, (Z) and the position of the stars, in which they are 
 ready and practiced. By these we were ever well treated, although we 
 dug our own food, and brought our supplies of wood and water. Their 
 houses, and also the things they eat, are like those of the nation from 
 which we had come,* but they suffer far greater want, for they have no 
 maize, acorns, or nuts. We always went naked like them, and at night 
 we covered ourselves with deer-skins. 
 
 Of the eight months we were among them, six we sustained in 
 great want, for even fish are not found where they are. At the expira 
 tion of this time, the pears began to ripen, and I and the negro went, 
 without these Indians knowing it, to others farther on, a day s journey 
 distant, called Maliacones, whom we reached. At the end of three 
 days, I sent him to bring Castillo and Dorantes ; and they having 
 arrived, we all set out with the Indians who were going to eat a small 
 fruit of certain trees on which they support themselves ten or twelve 
 days whilst the pears are maturing. They were joined by others called 
 
 * The Yguases. TR. 
 
76 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 Arbadaos, whom we found to be very weak, lank, and swollen, so much 
 so as to cause in us great astonishment. The Indians with whom we 
 came returned by the same route. We told them that we wished to 
 remain with the others, at which they showed regret ; and so we 
 remained with these people on the plain near their houses. As soon as 
 they noticed this, after having talked among themselves they came 
 together, and each of them taking one of us by the hand they led us 
 to their houses. Among these we underwent greater hunger than with 
 the others, for we ate daily not more than two hands full of pears, which 
 were green, and so milky that they burnt our mouths. As we had lack 
 of water, those who ate of them suffered great thirst. Our extremity 
 was great, and we bought two dogs, giving in exchange for them some 
 nets, with other things, and a skin which I used to cover me. i 
 
 I have already stated that throughout all this country we went 
 naked, and, as we had not been accustomed to it, we shed our skins 
 twice a year like serpents. The sun and air produced great ring-worms 
 on our breasts and backs, which gave us sharp pain, because of the large 
 loads we carried which were very heavy, and caused the cords to cut 
 into our arms. The country is so broken and thick-set, that often when 
 we got our wood in the forests, the blood flowed from us in many places, 
 caused by the thorns and shrubs that obstructed us, and tore our flesh 
 wherever we touched. At the times when it was my turn to break 
 wood, after it had cost me much blood, I could not bring it out either 
 on my back or by dragging. In these labors 1 had no other relief or 
 solace, than in thinking of the suffering of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, 
 and in the blood which he shed for me, in considering how much greater 
 must have been the torment that he sustained from the thorns than that 
 which I then received. 
 
 I traded with these Indians in combs that I made for them, and in 
 bows, arrows, and nets. We made mats for them, of which they have 
 great necessity, and although they know how to make them, they wish 
 not to do anything else than give their full time to getting food, for 
 when they are otherwise employed they are pinched with hunger. At 
 other times the Indians would set me to scraping and softening skins : 
 and the greatest prosperity I found myself in while there was on the 
 day in which they gave me a skin to dress ; for I would scrape it a very 
 
ALVAH NUSiEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 77 
 
 great deal and eat the scraps, which would last me for two or three 
 days. It happened to us among these people, as it had also among 
 others we had left behind, that we had given to us a piece of meat, 
 which we would eat raw; for if we had put it to roast, the first Indian 
 that came by would have taken it off with him and devoured it. It 
 appeared to us not well to expose it to this risk, and besides we were 
 in such condition that it would have given us pain to eat it roasted, 
 and we could not have digested it so well as raw. Such was the life 
 we spent there ; and that meagre subsistence was earned by the matters 
 of traffic which were the work of our hands. 
 
 jo 
 
78 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 liOW WE LEFT AFTER HAVING EATEN THE DOGS. 
 
 AFTER having eaten the dogs, it seeming to us that we had some 
 strength to go forward, commending ourselves to God, our Lord, that 
 he would guide us, we took our leave of the Indians. They went with 
 us as far as where were some persons of their language, who lived near 
 by. "While upon our journey it rained, and we traveled all the day wet. 
 Besides this, we lost our way, and went into an extensive wood to stop. 
 We plucked many leaves of the pear, and we put them at night in an 
 oven which we made, and gave them so much heat that in the morning 
 they were baked. After eating them, we put ourselves under the care 
 of God and departed. We found the way we had lost. Having passed 
 the wood, we found other houses, and, coming up to them, we saw two 
 women and some boys walking in the forest, who were frightened at 
 the sight of us, and fled, running into the woods to call the men. These 
 having arrived, they stopped behind some trees to look at us. We called 
 to them, and they came up with much timidity. After conversing with 
 them they told us that they had great scarcity of food, but that near 
 there were many houses of their people to which they would guide us. 
 That night we came to where there were fifty houses. The inhabitants 
 were astonished at our appearance, and showed much fear. After they 
 had become somewhat accustomed to us, they reached their hands to 
 our faces and bodies, and passed them in like manner over their own. 
 
 We stayed there that night, and in the morning the Indians 
 brought us their sick, beseeching us that we would bless them. They 
 gave us of what they had to eat, which was the leaves of the pear and 
 the green fruit roasted. As they did this with kindness and good will, 
 and were happy to be without anything to eat that they might have to 
 
ALVAR NU5JEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 7!< 
 
 give to us, we continued with them some days. While there, other 
 people came from beyond, and when they were about to depart, we told 
 our entertainers that we wished to go with them. It gave them much 
 uneasiness, and they pressed us warmly to stay : however, we took our 
 leave, and left them weeping for our departure, as it pressed upon them 
 heavily. 
 
80 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 OF THE CUSTOMS OF TIIE INDIANS OF THAT COUNTRY. 
 
 FROM the island of Malhado to this land, all the Indians whom we 
 saw have the custom that from the time in which their wives find 
 themselves pregnant, they sleep not with them until two years after 
 they have given birth. They suckle their children until the age of 
 twelve years, when they are old enough to get support for themselves. 
 We asked them why they reared them in this manner, and they said 
 because of the great poverty of the land it happened many times, as we 
 witnessed, that they were two or three days without eating, and some 
 times four, and that for this reason the children were allowed to suck, 
 ,that in years of scarcity they might not famish, otherwise those who 
 lived would be delicate and of little strength. If it chances that any 
 one falls sick in the desert and cannot keep up with the rest, they leave 
 him to perish, unless it be a son or a brother, and him they will assist 
 and even carry on their backs. 
 
 It is common among them all to leave their wives when there is 
 no conformity, and they directly connect themselves with whom they 
 please. This is the course of the men who are childless, but those who 
 have children remain with their wives and never abandon them. When 
 they dispute and quarrel in their towns, they strike each other with 
 their fists, fighting until exhausted, and then separate. Sometimes they 
 are parted by the women going between them, but the men never inter 
 fere. For no disaffection that arises do they go to their bows and arrows. 
 After they have fought or had their dispute, they take their houses and 
 go into the woods and live apart from the others until their heat has 
 subsided. When no longer offended and their anger is gone, they return 
 to the village. Thenceforward they are friends, as if nothing had passed 
 between them; nor is it necessary that any one should mend their 
 friendships, for in this way they unite them. If those that quarrel are 
 
ALVAR NUSEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 81 
 
 single, they go to some neighboring people, and although these should 
 be enemies, they receive them well, and welcome them warmly, and 
 they give them so largely of what they have, that, when their animosity 
 cools, and they return to their town, they go rich. 
 
 They are all warlike, and have as much strategy for protecting 
 themselves against their enemies as they could have were they reared 
 in Italy in continual feuds. When they are at a place in which their 
 enemies may attack them, they place their houses on the skirt of a 
 wood the most tangled and deep they can find, and near it they make a 
 ditch, in which they sleep. The warriors are covered by small pieces 
 of stick, through which they have loop-holes; and they are so hidden, 
 and have so false an appearance, that if come upon they are not disco 
 vered. They make a very wide road entering into the midst of the 
 wood, and they there prepare a spot on which the women and children 
 may sleep. When night comes they kindle fires in their lodges, for if 
 there be any spies they think to find them there ; and before daybreak 
 they again light the same fires. If the enemy comes to assault the 
 houses, they who are in the ditch make a sally, and from their trenches 
 do much injury without those who are outside seeing them, or being 
 able to find them. Where there is no wood in which they can shelter 
 themselves in this way and make their ambuscades, they settle on open 
 ground at a place they select. They invest themselves with trenches 
 covered with broken sticks, and make apertures whence to discharge 
 arrows at their enemies. These preparations are made for night. 
 
 While I was among the Aguenes, (AA) their enemies coming unawares 
 at midnight fell upon them, killed three and wounded many, so that 
 they ran from their houses to the fields before them. As soon as these 
 ascertained that the others had withdrawn, they returned to their houses 
 without being suspected. At four o clock in the morning they attacked 
 them and killed five, without enumerating the many others that were 
 wounded, and made them flee and leave their houses and bows, with all 
 their property. In a little while came the wives of the Quevenes to 
 them and formed a treaty whereby the parties became friends; however, 
 the women are sometimes the causes of the wars. All these nations, 
 when they have personal enmities, and are not of one family, assassinate 
 at night by waylaying, and inflict gross barbarities on each other. 
 
 21 
 
82 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HOW THE INDIANS ARE VIGILANT IN AVAR. 
 
 THESE are the most watchful in danger of any people I have ever 
 seen. If they fear an enemy they are awake the night long, Avith each 
 a boAV by his side and a dozen arrows. He that sleeps tries his boAV, 
 and if it is not strung, he gives the turn necessary to the cord. They 
 often come out from their houses, bending to the ground in such manner 
 that they cannot be seen, and look and watch on all sides to catch every 
 object. If they perceive anything about, they are all in the bushes 
 Avith their bows and arrows, and there they remain until day, running 
 from place to place where it is useful to be, or where they think their 
 enemies are. When the light has come, they unbend their bows until 
 they go out to hunt. The strings are of the sinews of deer. 
 
 The method they have of fighting is lying IOAV to the earth, and 
 whilst they shoot they move about, speaking and leaping from one point 
 to another, screening themselves from the shafts of their enemies. So 
 effectual is this manceuvering that they can receive A T ery little injury 
 from crossbow or arquebus, but they rather scoff at them; for these 
 arms are of little value employed in open field, where the Indians go 
 loosely. They are proper for defiles and in water; everywhere else the 
 horses Avill be found the most effective, and are what the natives 
 universally fear. Whosoever would fight against them must be cautious 
 to show no weakness or desire for anything that is theirs, and Avhilst 
 Avar exists, they must be treated with the utmost severity; for if they 
 discover any timidity or covetousness they are a race that well discern 
 the opportunities for vengeance, and gather strength from the fear of 
 their adversaries. When they use arrows in battle and exhaust their 
 store, each returns by his OAvn Avay without the one party folloAving the 
 
ALVAR NU&EZ CABEZA DE VACA. 83 
 
 other, although the one be many and the other few, for such is their 
 custom. Oftentimes their bodies are traversed from side to side by 
 arrows, and they do not die of the wounds, but soon become well, unless 
 the entrails or the heart be struck. 
 
 I believe they see and hear better, and have keener senses than 
 any people there are in the world. They are great in the endurance 
 of hunger, thirst, and cold, as if they were made for these more than 
 others by habit and nature. 
 
 Thus much I have wished to say beyond the gratification of that 
 desire which men have to learn the customs and manners of each other, 
 that those who hereafter at some time find themselves amongst these 
 people may be intelligent in their usages and artifice, the value of which 
 they will not find inconsiderable in such event. 
 
84 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 OF THE NATIONS AND TONGUES. 
 
 I ALSO desire to enumerate the nations and tongues that exist from 
 the Island of Malhado to the farthest limit. (liu) In the Island of Mal- 
 hado there are two languages; the people of the one are called Caoques, 
 those of the other Han. On the terra firina, over against the island, is 
 another people called Chorruco, who take their name from the forests 
 where they live. Advancing by the shores of the sea, others inhabit 
 who are called Doguenes, and in the rear of them others by the name 
 of Mendica. Farther along the coast are the Quevenes, and after them, 
 in the interior, the Mariames; and continuing by the coast are others 
 called the Guaycones; and behind them inland, the Yguazes. Back of 
 them are the Atayos; and in their rear others the Acubadaos, and 
 beyond them there are many on the same path. By the coast also live 
 those called Quitoles, and behind, in the interior, are the Avavares, to 
 whom adjoin the Maliacones, the Cutalchiches, and others called Susolas, 
 and the Comos; and by the coast farther on are the Camoles; and on 
 the same coast in advance are those whom we call Los de los Hijos, the 
 people of the figs. (CC 
 
 They have all of them habitations, villages, and tongues unlike. 
 Among them there is a language in which, calling to persons for "look 
 here," they say "arre aca," and to a dog "xo." Everywhere they 
 produce stupefaction with a smoke, and to enjoy it they will give what 
 ever they possess. They drink a tea from the leaves of a tree like the 
 oak, which they toast in a pot; and after these are parched, the pot is 
 filled with water and remains on the fire. When the liquor has been 
 twice boiled, they pour it into a jar and cool it, using the half of a 
 calabash. So soon as it is covered thickly with froth it is drunk as 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 85 
 
 warm as it can be supported ; and from the time it is taken from the 
 pot until it is used they are crying aloud, "Who wishes to drink ?" (DI 
 When the women hear these cries, they instantly stop, without daring 
 to move; and although they be heavily loaded, they dare do nothing 
 further. Should one of them move, they dishonor her, and beat her 
 with sticks, and, greatly vexed, they throw away the liquor they have 
 prepared ; while they who have drunk void it, which they do readily 
 and without pain. They give a reason for the usage, that when they 
 are about to drink, if the women move from where they hear the cry, 
 something malign enters the body in that liquid, and causes them 
 shortly to die. 
 
 So likewise at the time of boiling, the vessel must be covered ; and 
 if it happens to be open when a woman passes, they use no more of the 
 liquor, but throw it out. Its color is yellow. They are three days in 
 drinking it, taking no nourishment, and every day each one drinks of it 
 an arroba and a half. (EE) When the women have their indisposition, 
 they seek food only for themselves, as no one else will eat of what 
 they bring. In the time I was thus among these people I witnessed a 
 diabolical act, a man living with another, who was one of those that 
 are emasculate and impotent. These go habited like women, and 
 perform their duties, use arrows, and carry heavy loads. Among them 
 we saw many thus mutilated as I describe. They are more muscular 
 than other men, and taller: they bear very weighty burthens. (F 
 
86 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 OF HOW WE MOVED AWAY AND WERE WELL RECEIVED. 
 
 AFTER parting with those we left weeping,* we went with the 
 others to their houses, and were hospitably received by those in them. 
 They brought their children to us that we might touch their hands, and 
 gave us a quantity of the flour of Mezquiquez. This is a fruit that, 
 while hanging on the tree, is like that of the carob. It is eaten with 
 earth, and thus it is sweet and wholesome. The method they have of 
 preparing it is this : they make a hole in the ground of requisite depth, 
 and, throwing in the fruit, they pound it with a stick the size of the 
 leg, and a fathom and a half in length, until it is well mashed. To 
 that which sticks to the earth of the hole they bring and add more 
 handsfull, turning to beat it again a little time. They afterward throw 
 it into a jar, the shape of a pannier, and pour on water until it rises 
 above and covers the mixture. He that beats tastes it, and if it appears 
 to him not sweet, he asks for earth and stirs it in; and this he does 
 until he finds it sweet. They all sit round; eacli puts in his hand, and 
 takes out as much as he can, and they throw on to hides the pits and 
 skins. These are taken by him that has pounded, and put into the jar, 
 whereon he pours water as at first. They express the juice and water, 
 and again the pits and skins are thrown upon hides. This they do two 
 or three times to each pounding. (GG) Those who are present, for whom 
 it is a great banquet, have their stomachs greatly distended by the earth 
 and water they swallow. The Indians made a great feast of this for 
 us; and they had great dances and ceremonies as long as we remained 
 there. At night, while we slept before the door of the camp which we 
 
 * The Arbadaos. TR. 
 
ALVAR NUNEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 87 
 
 occupied, each of us was watched by six men with great care, none 
 daring to come in to us until the sun was up. 
 
 When we proposed to leave them, some women of another people 
 came there who lived farther along. They informed us whereabout 
 were their houses, and we set out for them, although the inhabitants 
 entreated us to remain for that day, because the houses whither we 
 were going were distant; there was no path to them; the women had 
 come tired, and would the next day go with us refreshed and show us 
 the way. Soon after we had taken our leave, some of the women who 
 had together come on from the same town followed behind us. As 
 there were no paths in the country we presently got lost, and thus 
 traveled four leagues, when, stopping to drink, we found the women in 
 pursuit of us at the water, who told us the great exertion they had 
 made to overtake us. We went on, taking them for guides, and passed 
 over a river toward evening, the water reaching to the breast. It might 
 be as wide as that at Seville, and its course was very rapid. (HII) 
 
 At sunset we reached a hundred Indian habitations. Before we 
 arrived all the people who were in them came out to receive us, with 
 such yells as were terrific, striking the palms of their hands violently 
 against their thighs. They brought out gourds bored with holes and 
 having pebbles in them, an instrument for the most important occasions, 
 and produced only at the dance, and to effect cures, and which none but 
 they who have them dare touch. They say that those have virtue, and 
 because they do not grow in that country, that they come from heaven; 
 nor do they know where they are to be found, but only that the rivers 
 bring them in their floods. So great were the fear and distraction of 
 these people, and some of them to reach us sooner than others, that 
 they might touch us, pressed us so closely that they lacked little of 
 killing us; and without letting us put our feet to the ground thev 
 carried us to their houses. We were so crowded and pressed upon by 
 numbers, that we went into the houses they had made for us. We 
 would not consent that they should in any way rejoice more that night 
 over us. They passed the night long among themselves in ceremonial 
 and dancing; and the next day they brought to us all the people of 
 that town, that we should touch and bless them as we had blessed 
 others among whom we had been. After they had done this, they 
 
88 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 presented many arrows to some women of the other town who had 
 accompanied theirs. 
 
 The next day we left, and all the people of the place went with 
 us ; and when we came to other Indians we were as well received as 
 we had been by the last; and they gave us of what they had to eat, 
 and the deer they had killed that day. Among them we witnessed 
 another custom, which is, from those who came to be cured, they who 
 were with us took their bows and arrows, shoes and beads if they wore 
 any, and then would bring them before us that we should cure them. 
 These, after being attended to, would go away highly pleased, saying 
 that they were well. So we parted from these Indians, and went to 
 others by whom we were welcomed. They brought us their sick, which 
 we having blessed, they declared that they were sound : and he that 
 was not healed believed that we could cure him; and with what the 
 others we had cured would relate, they made great rejoicing and dancing, 
 so that they left us no sleep. 
 
ALVAR NUisEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 89 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 OF ANOTHER STRANGE CUSTOM. 
 
 LEAVING these Indians, we went to the numerous dwellings of 
 others. From this place began another novel custom, which is, that 
 while the people received us very well, those who accompanied us began 
 to use them so ill as to take their goods and ransack their houses with 
 out leaving them anything. It gave us great concern to witness this 
 unjust procedure, inflicted too on those who received us hospitably; 
 and we feared also that it might provoke offence, and be the cause of 
 some tumult between them; but, as we were in no condition to make it 
 better, or to dare chastise such conduct, for the present we had to bear 
 with it, until the day when we should have greater authority among 
 them. They themselves, also, who lost their effects, noticing our sad 
 ness, attempted to console us by saying that we should not be grieved 
 on this account, as they were so gratified at having seen us, that they 
 held their properties as well bestowed, and that farther on they would 
 be repaid by others, who were very rich. On all this journey we had 
 great interruption from the many who followed us; and we could not 
 have escaped from them had we attempted it, for they made great haste 
 to overtake us, that they might touch us. So great was their impor 
 tunity for this act, that we consumed three hours in going through with 
 them, that they might depart. The next day they brought to us all 
 the inhabitants of the town. The greater part of them were clouded 
 of one eye, and others were in like manner entirely blind, (II) which 
 caused in us great astonishment; and are whiter than any of the many 
 we had seen until then. 
 
 Here we began to see mountains. They appeared to come in 
 succession from the north sea; and, according to the information the 
 
 23 
 
90 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 Indians gave us, we believe they rise fifteen leagues from the sea. We 
 set forth in a direction toward them with these Indians, and they 
 guided us by the way of some kindred of theirs, for they wished to 
 take us only where their friends lived, and were unwilling that their 
 enemies should come to such good, as they thought it was, to see us. 
 After we had arrived, they that went with us plundered the others; but 
 as the people there knew the fashion, they had hidden some things 
 before we arrived; and after they had received us with great festivity 
 and rejoicing, they brought out and presented to us what they had con 
 cealed. These were beads, ochre, and some little bags of silver. We, 
 in pursuance of custom, directly gave them to the Indians that came 
 with us; and when they had received them they began their dances 
 and festivities, and sent to call others from a town near by, that they 
 should come to see us. 
 
 In the afternoon they all came and brought to us beads, and bows, 
 and trifles of other sort, which we also distributed. Desiring to leave 
 the next day, the inhabitants all wished to take us to others, friends of 
 theirs, who were at the summit of the ridge, and they said that many 
 houses were there, and people who would give us many things. As it 
 was out of our way, we did not wish to go to them, and took our course 
 along the plain near the mountains, which we believed to be not far 
 from the sea. The people of the coast are all evil disposed, and we 
 considered it preferable to travel inland; for those of the interior treated 
 us mildly, and are of a better condition, and we felt sure that we should 
 find it more populous and better provisioned. Moreover, we chose this 
 course because, in traversing the country we should learn particulars of 
 it, so that should God our Lord hie pleased to bring any of us thence, 
 and lead us to the land of Christians, we might give some information 
 and news of it. As the Indians saw that we were determined not to 
 go where they would take us, they said that in the direction we would 
 go, there were no inhabitants, nor any pears or other thing to eat, and 
 begged us to tarry there that day, and we accordingly remained. They 
 directly sent two of their number to seek for people in the direction 
 that we wished to go; and the next day we left, taking with us many 
 of the Indians. The women went carrying water, and so great was our 
 authority that no one dared to drink of it without our permission. 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 91 
 
 Two leagues from there we met those who had gone out, and they 
 said that they had found no one; at which the Indians seemed much 
 cast down, and began again to entreat us to go by way of the mountains. 
 We did not wish to do so, and they, seeing our disposition, took their 
 leave of us with much regret, and returned down the river to their 
 houses, while we ascended along by it. After a little time we came 
 upon two women with burthens, who put them down as they saw us, 
 and brought to us of what they carried. It was the flour of maize. 
 They told us that farther up on that river we should find houses, a 
 plenty of pears, and of that flour. We bade them farewell; for they 
 were going to those whom we had left. 
 
 We walked until sunset, and arrived at a town of some twenty 
 houses, where we were received weeping and in great sorrow; for they 
 already knew that wheresoever we should come, all would be pillaged 
 and spoiled by those who accompanied us. When they saw that we 
 were alone, they lost their fear, and gave us pears, but nothing else. 
 We remained there that night, and at dawn the Indians broke upon 
 their houses. As they came upon the occupants unprepared and in 
 supposed security, having no place in which to conceal anything, all 
 they possessed was taken from them, for which they wept much. In 
 consolation the plunderers told them that we were children of the sun, 
 and that we had power to heal the sick and to destroy; and other lies 
 even greater than these, which none know better than they how to tell 
 when they find them convenient. They told them to conduct us with 
 great respect, that they should be careful to offend us in nothing, and 
 should give us all that they might possess, and endeavor to take us 
 where people are numerous ; and that wheresoever they arrived with us 
 they should rob and pillage the people of what they have, for that it 
 was customary. 
 
92 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 OF HOW THE INDIANS PLUNDERED ONE ANOTHER. 
 
 AFTER they had told and shown these Indians well what to do, 
 they left us together and went back. These, remembering what the 
 others had instructed them in, began to treat us with that same fear 
 and consideration that the others had shown. We went three days 
 journey with them, and they took us where there were many inhabit 
 ants. Before we arrived among them, these informed them of our 
 coming, and told them respecting us all that the first had imparted, and 
 added much more; for all these people are very fond of romance, and 
 are great liars, particularly so where they have any interest. When 
 we arrived near the houses all the inhabitants came out with delight 
 and great festivity to receive us. Among other things, two of their 
 physicians gave us two gourds, and thenceforward we carried these with 
 us, and added to our authority this token, which was highly reverenced 
 by them. Those who accompanied us rifled the houses, but as these 
 were many and they few, they could not carry away all they took, and 
 they abandoned more than the half. 
 
 From here we went along the base of the ridge, striking inland 
 more than fifty leagues, and at the end of them we found more than 
 fifty houses. Among the articles that were given to us, Andres 
 Dorantes received a bell of copper, thick and large, figured with a face, 
 which they had shown, greatly prizing it. They told him that they 
 had gotten it from others, their neighbors; and we asking them whence 
 these had obtained it, they said that it had been brought from the 
 direction of the north, where there was much copper, and that it was 
 highly esteemed. We concluded that whencesoever it came there was 
 a foundery, and that work was done in hollow form. 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 93 
 
 We departed the next day, and traversed a ridge seven leagues in 
 width. The stones on it are of scoria and iron. At night we arrived 
 at many houses situated on the banks of a very beautiful river. The 
 masters of them came half way on the road to meet us, carrying their 
 children on their backs. They gave us many little bags of pearl, and 
 of pounded antimony, with which they rub the face. They gave us 
 many beads, and many blankets of cowhide, and they loaded all that 
 accompanied us with some of everything they had. They eat pears, 
 and the seed of pines. There are in that country small pine trees, and 
 the cones of them are like small eggs; but the seed is better than those 
 of Castile, as its husk is very thin, and while green it is beat and made 
 into balls, and thus eaten. If dry, it is pounded in its husk, and 
 consumed in the form of Hour. 
 
 Those who there received us, after they had touched us went back 
 running to their houses, and directly returned, and did not stop running, 
 going and coming, bringing to us in this manner many things for con 
 sumption on the way. They fetched a man to me and stated that he 
 had a long time since been wounded by an arrow in the right shoulder, 
 and that the head of the shaft was lodged above his heart, which, he 
 said, gave him much pain, and in consequence he was always sick. I 
 probed the wound and felt the arrow-head, and found that it had passed 
 through the cartilage. With a knife I had, I opened the breast to the 
 place, and saw that the point was reversed, and very difficult to take 
 out. I continued to cut, and, putting in the point of the knife, at last 
 with great difficulty I drew it forth. It was very large. With the 
 bone of a deer, and by virtue of my calling, I made two stitches that 
 threw the blood over me, and with the hair of a skin I stanched the 
 wound. They asked me for the head after I had taken it out, and I 
 gave it, and the whole town came to look at it, and they sent it into 
 the back country, that the people there might view it. In consequence 
 of this operation they had many dances and festivities, as usual. The 
 next day I cut the two stitches, and the Indian was well. The wound 
 I had made appeared only like a seam in the palm of the hand. The 
 Indian said he did not feel any pain or sensitiveness in it whatever. 
 This cure gave us control over them throughout the land in all that 
 they had power, or deemed of any value or cherished. We showed 
 
94 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 them the bell which they had brought, and they told us that in the 
 place whence that had come, there were many plates of the same 
 material buried, and that it was a thing they greatly esteemed, and 
 whence it was there were fixed habitations. The country we considered 
 to be on the South Sea, which we had ever understood to be richer than 
 that of the North. 
 
 We left these, and traveled through so many sorts of people, of 
 such diverse languages, that the memory fails to recall them. They 
 ever plundered each other, and those that lost, like those that gained, 
 were fully content. We drew so many followers after us, that we had 
 not use for their services. While on our way through these vales, each 
 of the Indians carried a club three palms in length, and kept himself 
 on the alert. On raising a hare, which are abundant, they surround it 
 directly, and numerous clubs are thrown at it, and with a precision 
 astonishing to see. In this way they cause it to run from one to 
 another; so that, according to my thinking, it is the most pleasing sport 
 that can be conceived of, as oftentimes the animal runs into the hand. 
 So many of them did they give us, that at night when we stopped, each 
 one of us had eight or ten back loads. Those who had bows were not 
 with us, but dispersed about the ridge in quest of deer; and when they 
 came at night they brought five or six for each of us, besides birds, the 
 quail and other game. Indeed, all that they found or killed they put 
 before us, without themselves daring to take anything until we had 
 blessed it, though they should be dying of hunger, for they had so 
 established the custom since marching with us. 
 
 The women carried many mats, of which the men made us houses, 
 each of us having a separate one, with all his attendants. After these 
 were put up, we ordered the deer and hares to be roasted, with the rest 
 that had been taken. This was soon done, by means of certain ovens 
 made for the purpose. We took a little of each, and the remainder we 
 gave to the principal personages that came with us, directing them to 
 divide them among the rest. Every one brought his portion to us, that 
 we should give it our benediction ; for not until then dared they to eat 
 of it. Frequently we were accompanied by three or four thousand per 
 sons, and as we had to breathe upon and sanctify the food and drink for 
 each, and give them permission to do the many things they would come 
 
ALVAR NUftEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 95 
 
 to ask, it may be seen how great to us were the trouble and annoyance. 
 The women first brought us the pears, spiders, worms, and whatever 
 else they could gather; for even if they were famishing, they would eat 
 nothing unless we gave it to them. 
 
 In company with these, we crossed a great river coming from the 
 north, and, passing over some plains thirty leagues in extent, we found 
 many persons who came from a great distance to receive us, and they 
 met us on the road over which we had to travel, and received us in the 
 manner of those we had left. 
 
96 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 OF HOW THE FASHION OF RECEIVING US CHANGED. 
 
 FROM this place there was another method of receiving us as 
 respects the pillage. Those who came out in the ways to bring us 
 presents were not plundered, but on our coming into their houses them 
 selves offered us all that they had, and the houses as well. We gave 
 the things to the chief personages who accompanied us, that they should 
 divide them; and those that were despoiled always followed us until 
 coming to a country that was populous, where they might repair their 
 loss. They would tell those among whom we came, that they shodW 
 retain everything and conceal nothing, as it could not be done without 
 our knowing it, and then that we should cause them to die, for that the 
 sun revealed everything to us. So great was the fear upon them, that 
 during the first days they were with us, they were continually trembling, 
 without daring to do, speak, or raise their eyes to the heavens. They 
 guided us through more than fifty leagues of desert, over very rough 
 mountains, which being very dry were without game, and in consequence 
 we suffered much from hunger. 
 
 At the termination we forded a very large river,* the water coming 
 up to our breasts. From this place many of the people began to sicken 
 from the great privation and labor they had undergone in the passage 
 of those ridges, which were sterile and difficult in the extreme. They 
 conducted us to certain plains at the foot of the mountains, where people 
 came to meet us from a great distance, and they received us as the last 
 had done; and they gave so many of the goods to those who came with 
 us, that the half were left because they could not take them away. I 
 
 * The Arkansas, near its junction with the Canadian Itiver. TR. 
 
t 
 
 ALYAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 97 
 
 told those that gave to resume them, that they might not lie there and 
 be lost : but they answered us that they would in nowise do so, for it 
 was not their custom, after they had bestowed a thing, to take it back ; 
 and so, considering the goods no longer of value, they left them to perish.* 
 
 We told these people that we desired to go where the sun sets ; and 
 they said that they who lived in that direction were remote. We com 
 manded them to send and make known our coming; but they strove to 
 excuse themselves the best they could ; for that people were their ene 
 mies, and they did not wish us to go to them. Yet they dared not to 
 disobey. They sent two women, one of them their own, and the other 
 a captive from that people, for the women can negotiate even though 
 there be war. We followed them, and stopped at a place where we had 
 agreed to wait for them; but they tarried five days; and the Indians 
 said they could not have found anybody. 
 
 We told them to conduct us toward the north, and they answered 
 us as they had done before, saying that in that direction there were no 
 people, except afar off; that there was nothing to eat, nor could water 
 be found. Notwithstanding all this, we persisted, and said that in that 
 course we desired to go; and they still tried to excuse themselves in the 
 best manner possible. At this we became offended, and one night I 
 went out to sleep in the woods, apart from them; but they directly went 
 to where I was, and remained there all night without sleeping, and in 
 great fear, talking to me, and telling me how terrified they were, beseech 
 ing us to be no longer angry, and that though they knew they should 
 die on the way, they would nevertheless lead us in the direction we 
 desired to go. 
 
 Whilst we still feigned to be displeased, that their fright might not 
 leave them, there happened a remarkable circumstance, which was, that 
 on this same day many of them became ill, and the next day eight men 
 died. Abroad in the country wheresoever this became known, there 
 was such dread, that it seemed as if the inhabitants at sight of us would 
 die of fear. They besought us that we would not remain angered, nor 
 require that more of them should die. They believed that we caused 
 their death by only willing it; when in truth it gave us so much pain 
 
 * El Ynca, L. V, P. T, C. III. Tu. 
 
 25 
 
98 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 that it could not be greater; for beyond the loss of them that died, we 
 feared they might all die, or abandon us out of fear, and all other people 
 thenceforward should do the same, seeing what had come to these. We 
 prayed to God our Lord, that he would relieve them, and thenceforth 
 all those that were sick began to get better. 
 
 We witnessed one thing with great admiration, that the parents, 
 and brothers, and wives of those that died had great sympathy for them 
 in their suffering; but after their deaths they showed no feeling, nor 
 did they weep or speak among themselves, nor make any signs, nor did 
 they dare approach the bodies until we commanded that these be taken 
 to be buried. 
 
 While we were among these people, which was more than fifteen 
 days, we saw no one speak to another; nor did we see an infant smile; 
 and the only one that cried they took off to a distance, and with the 
 sharp teeth of a rat they scratched it from the shoulders down, and 
 nearly to the ends of the legs. I, seeing this cruelty, and offended at 
 it, asked them why they did so: they said for chastisement, because 
 the child had wept in my presence. (KK) These terrors they imparted to 
 all those who had lately come to know us, that they might give us 
 whatever they had; for they knew that we kept nothing, and would 
 give all to them. This people were the most obedient we had found 
 in all the land, the best conditioned, and were usually comely. 
 
 The sick having recovered, and it being now three days that we 
 were in the place, the women got back whom we sent away, and said 
 that they had found but very few people, and that they had nearly all 
 gone for cattle, for it was then in the season of them. We ordered the 
 convalescent to remain, and the well to go with us, and at the end of 
 two days journey those two women should go with two of our number 
 to fetch up the people, and bring them on the road to receive us. Con 
 sequently, the next day, in the morning, the most robust departed with 
 us. At the end of three days travel we stopped, and the next day 
 Alonso del Castillo set out with Estevanico the negro, taking the two 
 women as guides. She that was the captive led them to a river which 
 ran between certain ridges, where there was a town at which her father 
 lived; and these habitations were the first seen that had the appearance 
 and structure of houses. 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 99 
 
 Here Castillo and Estevanico arrived, and after having talked with 
 the Indians, Castillo returned at the end of three days to the spot at 
 which he had left us, and brought five or six of the people. He told 
 us how he had found fixed dwellings of civilization, and that the inha 
 bitants lived on beans and pumpkins, and that he had seen maize. 
 This news the most of anything in the world delighted us, and for it 
 we gave infinite thanks to our Lord. Castillo told us that the negro 
 was coming with all the population to wait for us in the road not far 
 off. Accordingly we left, and, having traveled a league and a half, we 
 met the negro, and the people coining to receive us; and they gave us 
 beans, and many pumpkins, and calabashes, blankets of cowhide, and 
 other things. As this people and those who came with us were enemies, 
 and spoke not each other s language, we discharged the latter, giving 
 them what we received, and we departed with the others. Six leagues 
 from there, as the night set in, we arrived at the houses, where great 
 festivities were made over us. We remained one day, and the next set 
 out with these Indians, who took us to the settled habitations of others, 
 who lived upon the same food. 
 
 From that place onward there was another usage, that those who 
 knew of our approach did not come out to receive us on the roads, as 
 the others had done, but we found them in their houses, and others 
 they had made for our reception. The} were all seated with their faces 
 turned to the wall, their heads down, and the hair brought before their 
 eyes, and their property placed in a heap in the middle of their houses. 
 From this place forward they began to give us many blankets of skin, 
 and they had nothing that they did not give to us. They have the 
 finest persons of any that we saw, and of the greatest activity and 
 strength, and who best understood us and intelligently answered our 
 inquiries. We called them los de las vacas, the cow nation, because 
 most of the cattle that are killed are destroyed in their neighborhood; 
 and along up that river over fifty leagues they kill great numbers. 
 
 They go entirely naked, after the manner of the first we saw. 
 The women are covered with skins of deer, and some few men, chiefly 
 of the aged, who are incapable of fighting. It is a very populous 
 country. We asked them how it was that they did not plant maize : 
 they answered us that it was that they might not lose what they should 
 
100 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 have to put in the ground, for that two years in succession the rains 
 had failed, and the seasons had been so dry that all had lost their seed 
 by the moles, and they could not venture to plant again until after the 
 water had fallen copiously. They begged us to tell the sky to rain, 
 and to pray for it; and we told them that we would do so. We also 
 desired to know whence they had got that maize; and they told us 
 from where the sun goes down, and that it grew throughout the region, 
 and that the nearest of it was by that path. Since they did not wish 
 to go thither, we asked them by what direction we might proceed best, 
 and to inform us concerning the way : they said that the path was along 
 up by that river toward the north; and that in a journey of seventeen 
 days* we should not find anything to eat but a fruit they call chacan, 
 which is ground between stones, and even after this preparation it could 
 not be eaten for its dryness and pungency; which was so, for they 
 showed it to us there, and \ve could not eat it. They told us also that 
 whilst we traveled by the river upward,* we should all the way pass 
 through a people that were their enemies, who spoke their tongue, and 
 who had nothing to give us to eat, but would receive us with the best 
 good-will; that they would present us with many blankets of cotton, 
 hides, and other articles of their wealth ; but for all this, it appeared to 
 them we ought not by any means to take that course. 
 
 Doubting what would be best to do, and which way we should 
 choose for suitableness and support, we remained with these Indians 
 two days, and they gave us beans and pumpkins for our subsistence. 
 Their manner of cooking these is so new, that from its strangeness I 
 desire to speak of it here, that it may be seen and remarked how curious 
 and diversified are the contrivances and ingenuity of the human family. 
 They have not discovered the use of pipkins, and to boil what they 
 would eat, they fill the half of a large calabash with water, and throw 
 on the fire many stones of such as are most convenient and readily 
 take the heat. When hot, they take them up with tongs of sticks, and 
 drop them into the water in the calabash until it boils with the fervor 
 of the stones. Then, whatever is to be cooked is put in, and until it is 
 done they continue taking out the cool stones and throwing in hot ones, 
 that the heat may be kept up : and thus they boil their food. 
 
 * To the West. Ta. 
 
ALVAR NUftEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 101 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 OF HOW WE TOOK THE WAT TO THE MAIZE. 
 
 Two days having been spent while we tarried there, we determined 
 to go in quest of the maize. We did not wish to follow the path that 
 leads to where the cattle are, because it is toward the north, and for us 
 was very circuitous, since we ever held it certain that going toward the 
 sunset we must find that which we desired. Thus we took our way, 
 and traversed all the country until coming out at the South Sea. Nor 
 did the dread we had of the sharp hunger through which we should 
 have to pass (as in verity we did) throughout the seventeen days jour 
 ney of which they had spoken, suffice to hinder us. During all that 
 time, in ascending by the river, the natives gave us many blankets of 
 cowhide; and we did not eat of the fruit, but our sustenance each day 
 was about a handful of deer-suet, which we had a long time been used 
 to saving for such trials. Thus we passed the entire journey of seven 
 teen days, and at the end we crossed the river and traveled other 
 seventeen days. (LL) As the sun went down, upon some plains that lie 
 there between chains of very great mountains, we found a people who 
 for the third part of the year eat nothing but the poAvder of a certain 
 straw, (MM) and it being that season at the time we passed, we also had to 
 eat of it, until we had reached permanent habitations, where there was 
 abundance of maize in close succession. They gave us a large quantity 
 of it in grain and flour, and calabashes, beans, and blankets of cotton. (N 
 Of all of these we loaded the people who had guided us there, and they 
 then returned, the happiest creatures on earth. 
 
 We gave many thanks to God our Lord, for having brought us 
 there where we had found so much food. Some of the houses were of 
 earth, and the others of cane mats. From this point we marched 
 
102 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 through more than a hundred leagues of country, and continually found 
 settled dpmicils, and great abundance of maize and beans. The people 
 gave us many deer and many blankets of cotton, which were better 
 than those of New Spain; also, many beads, and certain corals that are 
 found in the South Sea, and many of the fine turquoise they have that 
 come from the north. Indeed, they gave us everything they had. To 
 me they gave five emeralds made into arrow-heads, that they use at 
 their celebrations and dances. They appeared to me to be very precious. 
 I asked from whence they had got these; and they said that they were 
 brought from some lofty mountains that stand toward the north, where 
 there were populous towns and very large houses, and that they pur 
 chased them in exchange with bunches of plumes and feathers of parrots. 
 
 Among this people the women are treated with more decorum than 
 in any part of the Indias we had visited. They wear a shirt of cotton 
 that falls as low as the knee, and over it half sleeves, with skirts reach 
 ing to the ground, made of dressed deer skin. It is open in front, and 
 brought close with straps of leather. They soap this with a certain 
 root that extremely cleanses, by which they are enabled to keep it 
 becomingly/ 00 This people wear shoes. They all came to us that 
 we should touch and bless them ; and for it they were very urgent, so 
 that we could accomplish it only with great labor, for sick and well all 
 wished to go with a benediction. Many times it occurred that of the 
 women who accompanied us some gave birth, and so soon as the children 
 were born they would bring them to us, that we should touch and bless 
 them. The Indians always accompanied us, until they had delivered 
 us to others; and all of them held it in full faith that we came from 
 heaven. While we traveled with them, we went without eating all 
 day until night, and we ate so little they were astonished at it. We 
 never felt exhaustion, neither were we in fact at all weary, so inured 
 were we to hardship. We possessed over them great influence and 
 authority; and to preserve these we talked with them but seldom. 
 The negro was in constant conversation with them; he informed him 
 self about the ways we wished to take, of the towns that there were, 
 and concerning the things of which we desired to know. 
 
 We passed through many and dissimilar tongues. Our Lord 
 granted us favor with the people that spoke them, for they always 
 
ALYAR NUSTEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 103 
 
 understood us, and we them. We questioned them and received their 
 answers by signs, just as if they spoke our language and we theirs; for 
 although we knew six languages, we could not everywhere avail our 
 selves of them, there being a thousand differences. 
 
 Throughout all these countries the people who were at war imme 
 diately made friends, that they might come to meet us, and bring us all 
 that they possessed. In this way we left all the land at peace, and we 
 taught all the inhabitants by signs which they understood, that in 
 heaven there was a man whom we called God; that he had created the 
 sky and the earth, and him we worshiped and had for our master; that 
 we did what he commanded, and from his hand came all good things, 
 and if they would do as we did all would be well with them. So ready 
 of apprehension did we find them, that if we had had the use of lan 
 guage by which to make ourselves perfectly understood, we should have 
 left them all Christians. Thus much we gave them to understand the 
 best we could ; and afterward, when the sun rose, they opened their 
 hands together with loud shouting toward the heavens, and then drew 
 them down all over their bodies. They did the same again when the 
 sun went down. They are a people of good condition and substance, 
 and capable in any pursuit. 
 
104 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 OF HOW THEY GAVE US THE HEARTS OF DEER. 
 
 IN the town where they gave us the emeralds they gave Dorantes 
 over five hundred split hearts of deer, of which they ever keep a great 
 abundance for their consumption, and in consequence we gave that place 
 the name of el pueblo de los corazones, the Town of Hearts. It is the 
 entrance into many provinces that are on the South Sea; and whoever 
 go to seek it and do not enter there, they will be lost; for there is no 
 maize on the coast; the inhabitants eat the powder of corn (Wec?o) (rp) and 
 of straw, and fish caught in the sea from rafts, as they have no canoes. 
 The women conceal their nudity with grass and straw. They are a 
 melancholy and emaciated people. 
 
 We think that near the coast, by the way of the towns through 
 which we came, there are more than a thousand leagues of inhabited 
 country. It is plentiful of subsistence, for thrice a year it is planted in 
 beans and maize. There are three kinds of deer, one of them the size 
 of the young steer of Castile. There are immovable houses, which the 
 inhabitants call buhios. They have poison, which is from a certain tree 
 the size of the apple. No more is necessary for effect than to pluck the 
 fruit and moisten the arrow with it, or, if there be no fruit, to break a 
 twig, and with the milk from it to do the same. This tree is abundant, 
 and so deadly that if the leaves are bruised and steeped in some neigh 
 boring water, all the deer and other animals that drink of it soon 
 burst. Q) 
 
 We were in this town three days. A day s journey farther there 
 was another town, at which the rain fell so heavily while we were there, 
 that the river became so swollen we could not cross it, and we were 
 detained fifteen days. In this time Castillo saw on the neck of an 
 
ALVAR NUftEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 105 
 
 Indian the buckle of a sword-belt, and tied to it a nail for a horse shoe. 
 He received them, and \ve asked the native what they were, and he 
 answered that they came from heaven. We questioned him further as 
 to who had brought them thence; and they all responded, that certain 
 men who wore beards like us, had corne from heaven and arrived at 
 that river, and that they brought horses, and lances, and swords, and 
 that they had lanced two Indians. In a manner of the utmost indiffer 
 ence that we could feign, we then asked them what had become of those 
 men; and they answered us that they had gone to sea, had put their 
 lances beneath the water, and went themselves under the water, and 
 that afterward they were seen on the surface going toward the sunset. 
 We gave many thanks to God our Lord for that which we heard ; for 
 we had despaired of ever hearing more news of Christians. But now 
 oppositely were we left in great doubt and gloom, thinking how that 
 people were no more than some who had come by sea on discoveries. 
 However, as we had such exact information of them, we made greater 
 speed on our way; and as we advanced, the news of the Christians 
 continually grew. We told the natives we were going in search of this 
 people, to tell them not to kill them, nor to make them slaves, nor to 
 take them from their country, nor do them other injustice; and of this 
 they were very glad. 
 
 We passed through many territories, and we found them all vacant ; 
 for their inhabitants wandered fleeing among the mountains, without 
 daring to have houses, or to till the earth, for fear of the Christians. 
 It was a sight of infinite pain to us, the view of a land very fertile and 
 beautiful, abundant in waters and streams, with its hamlets deserted and 
 burnt, the fugitives thin and weak, and all gone and concealed. As 
 they did not plant, they appeased their fierce hunger by eating roots, 
 and the bark of trees. We bore a share in this famine on the whole 
 length of the journey, for these unfortunates could but poorly provide 
 for us, being so reduced that they looked as though they would willingly 
 die. They brought to us blankets of* those which they had hidden 
 because of the Christians, and gave them to us; and moreover, they 
 related to us how the Christians at other times had entered by land, 
 and had destroyed and burnt the towns, carrying away half of the men, 
 and all the women and boys, and that those who had been able to 
 
 27 
 
100 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 escape were wandering about fugitives. We found them so alarmed 
 that they dared not remain anywhere. They would not, nor could 
 they plant, but preferred to suffer rather than to live in dread of such 
 cruel usage as they had received. They showed themselves very 
 greatly delighted with us; yet we feared that on our arrival among 
 those who held the frontier and fought for it against the Christians, 
 they would treat us badly, and revenge upon us the conduct of their 
 enemies. But when God, our Lord, was pleased to bring us to where 
 they were, they began to dread and respect us as the others had done, 
 and even somewhat more; at which we remained a little wondering; 
 whence it may be very clearly seen that to bring all these people to be 
 Christians and to the obedience of Imperial Majesty, they must be won 
 by kindness, and that this is a certain way, and no other is. 
 
 They took us to a town on the edge of a range of mountains, to 
 which the ascent is over difficult crags. We found many people there 
 collected together, out of fear of the Christians. We received more 
 than two thousand back loads of maize, which we gave to the distressed 
 and hungered beings who had guided us to that place. The next day 
 we dispatched four messengers through the country, as we were accus 
 tomed to do, that they should call together all the rest of the Indians 
 they could at a town distant three days journey. We departed the 
 day after, with all the people. We continually discovered the tracks 
 and marks of where the Christians had slept. At midday we met our 
 messengers, who told us that they had found no Indians, for they were 
 roving for concealment in the forests, fleeing, that the Christians might 
 not kill them, nor make them slaves : that the night before they had 
 observed the Christians from behind some trees, and noticed what they 
 were about, and they saw that they were carrying away many natives 
 in chains. 
 
 They who came with us were alarmed at this intelligence, and 
 some of them returned to spread the news over the land, that the 
 Christians were coming; and many more would have done the same 
 had we not forbid it, and told them to cast aside their fear; and with 
 this they reassured themselves, and were well content. At that time 
 we had Indians with us belonging a hundred leagues behind, but we 
 were in no condition to discharge them, that they could return to their 
 
ALVAR NUStEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 10T 
 
 homes. To encourage them, we stayed there that night, and the day 
 after we marched, and slept on the road. The day following, those we 
 had sent forward as messengers guided us to where they had seen 
 Christians. We arrived there in the afternoon, and saw at once that 
 they had told the truth. We perceived that the persons were mounted, 
 by the stakes to which the horses had been tied. 
 
 From this spot, which is at the river called Petutan, to the river 
 to which Diego de Guzman came, where we heard of the Christians, 
 may be as many as eighty leagues; thence to the town where the rains 
 overtook us twelve leagues, and it is twelve leagues from the South Sea. 
 Throughout this region, wheresoever the mountains extend, we saw 
 clear traces of gold and antimony, iron, copper, and other metals. 
 Where the settled habitations are the climate is hot; even in January 
 it is very warm. From thence toward the equator, the country, which 
 is desert to the North Sea, is unhappy and sterile. There we under 
 went great and incredible hunger. Those who inhabit and wander over 
 it are a very wild race, of savage nature and cruel customs. The people 
 of fixed residences, and those back of them, regard silver and gold with 
 indifference; nor can they conceive for what they can be useful. 
 
108 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 HOW WE SAW MARKS OF CHRISTIANS. 
 
 AFTER we saw sure signs of Christians, and heard how near we 
 were to them, we gave thanks to God our Lord for having chosen to 
 bring us out of a captivity so melancholy and wretched. The delight 
 that we felt let each one conjecture, when he shall remember the length 
 of time we were in that country, and the pains and perils we under 
 went. That night I entreated one of my companions to return three 
 days journey after the Christians who were moving about over the 
 country to which we had given assurances of protection. They received 
 this proposal badly, excusing themselves because of weariness and 
 exhaustion; and although either of them might have done it better 
 than I, being younger and more athletic, yet seeing their unwillingness, 
 the next morning I took the negro and eleven Indians with me, and, 
 following the Christians by the trail they left, I traveled ten leagues 
 and passed three villages, at which they had slept. The next day I 
 overtook four of them on horseback, who were astonished at the sight 
 of me, so strangely habited as I was, and in the company of Indians. 
 They stood staring at me a length of time so confounded, that they 
 neither hailed me nor drew near to make any inquiry. I told them to 
 take me to their chief; and accordingly we went together for half a 
 league to where Diego de Alcaraz, their captain, was. 
 
 After we had conversed, he stated to me that he was completely 
 lost there, for he had been unable in many days to take any Indians; 
 he knew not which way to go, and they had already begun to experience 
 hunger and privation. I told him how Castillo and Dorantes remained 
 behind ten leagues off with a multitude that conducted us. He there 
 upon sent to them three cavalry, with fifty of the Indians that accom- 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 
 
 panied him. The negro went back to guide them, and I remained. I 
 asked the Christians to give me a certificate of the year, month, and 
 day that I had arrived there, and of the manner of my coming; and 
 they accordingly did so. From this river* to the town of the Christians. 
 which is named San Miguel, within the government of the province 
 they call New Galicia, there are thirty leagues. 
 
 * Petutan. TR. 
 
 23 
 
HO THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 OF HOW I SENT FOR THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 FIVE days having elapsed, Andres Dorantes and Alonso del Castillo 
 arrived with those who had been sent after them, and they brought with 
 them more than six hundred persons of that town whom the Christians 
 had driven up into the woods, and who had wandered in concealment 
 over the land. Those who had accompanied us so far had drawn them 
 out, and given them to the Christians, who thereupon dismissed those 
 they had brought with them : they having come to where I was, Alcaraz 
 begged me that we would send to summon the people of the towns on 
 the banks of the river, who straggled about under cover of the woods, 
 and command them to bring us something to eat. This last was unne 
 cessary, for they were ever diligent to bring us all that they could. 
 We directly sent our messengers to call them, and there came six 
 hundred souls, who brought us all the maize in their possession. They 
 fetched it in certain jars closed up with clay, which they had buried 
 and concealed. They brought us whatever else they had, but we wished 
 only the provision, and the rest we gave to the Christians, that they 
 might divide it among themselves. After this we had many and high 
 words with them, for they wished to make slaves of the Indians that 
 had brought us. 
 
 In consequence of the difficulty, we left, at our departure, many 
 bows of Turkish shape that we had along with us, and many pouches. 
 The five arrows with the points of emerald were forgotten among the 
 others, and we lost them. We gave the Christians many blankets of 
 cowhide, and other things which we brought. We found great trouble 
 to induce the Indians to return to their houses, to feel no apprehension, 
 and to plant corn. They were willing to do nothing until they had 
 
ALVAR NUftEZ CABEZA DE VACA. Ill 
 
 been with us, and delivered us into the hands of other Indians, as had 
 been the custom ; for if they returned without doing so, they were afraid 
 they should die; and while in our company they feared neither Chris 
 tians nor lances. Our countrymen were made jealous by this, and caused 
 it to be told to them in their tongue that we were of them, that we had 
 for a long time been lost, and that we were persons of mean condition 
 and low esteem; but that they were the lords of that land, whom the 
 Indians should obey and serve. They cared little or nothing for what 
 was told to them, and conversed among themselves, saying that the 
 Christians lied, for we had come from whence the sun rises, and they 
 whence it goes down; that we healed the sick, and they killed the 
 sound; and that we had come naked and barefooted, and they in 
 clothing and on horses, and with lances : that we were not covetous of 
 anything, but that all that was given to us we directly turned to give, 
 remaining with nothing; and the others, that they had no purpose but 
 to rob whomsoever they found, and give nothing to any one. 
 
 In this way they spoke of all the matters concerning us, and they 
 enhanced these by contrasting them with those of the others, and their 
 response was delivered accordingly, and translated into the language of 
 the Christians. They made it known to the other Indians by means of 
 a tongue they have among them, through which they understood us. 
 Those to whom it belongs we call distinctively Primahaitu, which is 
 like saying Biscayans. (RR) We found it in use over more than four 
 hundred leagues of our travel, without another in the whole extent. 
 Even to the last I could not convince the Indians that we were of the 
 Christians, and with great effort and solicitation we got them to return 
 to their residences. We commanded them to put aside apprehension, 
 establish their towns, plant and cultivate the soil. From abandonment 
 it had already grown up thickly in trees. It is doubtless the best there 
 is in all these Indias, the most prolific and plenteous in provision. 
 Three times in the year it is planted. It produces a great variety of 
 fruit; it has beautiful rivers, and other many and good waters. There 
 are ores, and clear marks of gold and silver. Its people are well 
 disposed : they serve such Christians as are their friends with great 
 good-will. They are good-looking, much more so than the Mexicans. 
 Indeed, it is a land that needs no quality to make it blessed. (SS 
 
112 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 The Indians, at taking their leave, told us that they would do 
 what we had commanded, and would build their towns, if the Christians 
 would suffer them; and this I say and affirm most positively, that if 
 they have not done so it is the fault of the Christians. 
 
 After we had dismissed the Indians in peace, and thanked them 
 for the toil they had supported with us, the Christians with subtlety 
 sent us on under charge of one Zeburos, an alcalde, who was attended 
 by two men. They took us by the way of forests and solitudes, to 
 hinder us from intercourse with the natives, that we might neither 
 witness nor have knowledge of the act they would commit. It is but 
 an instance of how frequently men are mistaken in their aims ; for we, 
 who went about to preserve the liberty of the Indians, when we thought 
 that we had secured it, the contrary appeared ; for the Christians had 
 arranged to go and spring upon those we had sent away in peace and 
 confidence. They executed their plan as they had designed it, taking 
 us through the woods, wherein for two days we were lost, without water 
 and without way. Seven of our men died of thirst, and we all of us 
 thought to have perished. Many of the friends of the Christians who 
 accompanied them were unable to reach the place where we got water 
 the second night, until the noon of the next day. We had traveled 
 twenty-five leagues, a little more or less, and reached a town of friendly 
 Indians. The alcalde left us there, and we went on three leagues 
 farther to a town called Culia/an, where was Melchoir Diaz, principal 
 alcalde and captain of the province. 
 
ALVAR NUSlEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 113 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 OF HOW THE CHIEF ALCALDE RECEIVED US KINDLY THE NIGHT OF OUR ARRIVAL. 
 
 THE chief alcalde had heard of the expedition, and our return, 
 and immediately that night he left and came to where we were. He 
 wept with us, giving many praises to God our Lord for having extended 
 to us so much care. He comforted and entertained us kindly, and in 
 behalf of the Governor, Nuilo de Guzman, and himself, he tendered to 
 us all that he had, and the services within his power. He showed 
 much regret for the seizure, and for the injustice we had received from 
 Alcaraz and others. We were sure that, had he been present, that 
 which was done to the Indians and to us would not have occurred. 
 
 The night having passed, we departed the next day. The chief 
 alcalde besought us to tarry there, as in this we could do eminent service 
 to God and your Majesty; for that the land was deserted and without 
 tillage, and all badly wasted; the Indians were fleeing and concealing 
 themselves in the thickets, unwilling to occupy their towns; that we 
 should send to call them, and in behalf of God and your Majesty we 
 should command them to return to live in the plains and cultivate the 
 ground. 
 
 To us this appeared very difficult to effect, for we brought with us 
 no Indian of our own, nor of those who would accompany us according 
 to custom, intelligent in these affairs. At last we attempted it with 
 two of the Indians who were brought there captives from that country, 
 and were with the Christians whom we first overtook. They had seen 
 the people who conducted us, and learnt from them the great authority 
 and command we had carried with us throughout those parts and exer 
 cised, the wonders we had worked, the sick we had cured, and the other 
 many things. We commanded them, with others of the town, that 
 
114 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 they should go together to summon the hostile Indians among the 
 mountains, and those of the river Petaan, where we had found the 
 Christians, and say to them that they must come to us, that we wished 
 to speak to them. For their protection, and as a token to the others of 
 our will, we gave them a gourd of those we were accustomed to bear in 
 our hands, which had been our principal insignia and mark of high 
 rank, and with this they departed. 
 
 They were gone seven days, and returned with three chiefs of those 
 who were revolted among the ridges, who brought with them fifteen 
 men, and presented us beads, turquoises, and feathers. The messengers 
 told us that they had not found the people of the river where we 
 appeared, for the Christians had made them flee again into the ridges. 
 Melchoir Diaz said to them on our part, in the language he was accus 
 tomed to speak with those Indians, that we came in the name of God, 
 who is in heaven ; that we had traveled about the world many years, 
 telling all the people we found that they should believe in God, and 
 serve him, for that he is the master of all things on the earth; that he 
 benefits and rewards the virtuous, and to the bad he gives perpetual 
 punishment of fire ; that when the good die, he takes them to heaven, 
 where none ever die, nor feel cold, nor hunger, nor thirst, nor any 
 inconvenience whatsoever, but the greatest enjoyment possible to con 
 ceive : that those who will not believe in him, nor obey his commands, 
 he casts beneath the earth into the company of demons, and into a great 
 fire, which is never to cease, but torment everlastingly. That over 
 this, if they desired to be Christians and serve God in the way that we 
 required them to do, the Christians would cherish them as brothers, and 
 behave towards them very kindly : that we would command them to 
 give no offence, nor take them from their territories, but be their great 
 friends : but if they did not do this, the Christians would treat them 
 very badly, and would take them away as slaves into other lands. 
 
 To this they answered in the same tongue, that they would be true 
 Christians, and serve God : and being asked to whom they sacrifice and 
 offer worship, and from whom they ask rain for their corn fields, and 
 health for themselves, they answered, of a man who is in heaven. We 
 inquired of them his name, and they told us Aguar; and they believed 
 that he had created the whole world, and the things in it. We returned 
 
ALVAR NUStEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 
 
 to question them as to how they knew this; and they answered that 
 their fathers and grandfathers had told them, and from distant time 
 came their knowledge of it; and that they knew that rain and all good 
 things were sent to them hy him. We told them that the name of him 
 of whom they spoke we called God, and if they would call him so, and 
 would worship him as we directed, they would find their welfare. 
 They responded, that they had well understood what we had said, and 
 that they would do accordingly. And we commanded them to descend 
 from the mountains and come in confidence and peace, inhabit the whole 
 country, build their houses, and among these they should build one for 
 God, and at its entrance place a cross like that which we had present ; 
 and when the Christians should come among them, they should go out 
 to receive them with their crosses in their hands, without bows and 
 without arms, and that they should take them to their dwellings and 
 give them of what they had to eat, and they would do no harm, but be 
 their friends; and they told us that they would do as we had commanded. 
 The captain gave them blankets, and entertained them ; after which 
 they returned, taking with them the two captives that had been used 
 as emissaries. This took place before the notary, and in the presence 
 of many witnesses. 
 
110 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 OF HOW WE MADE THEM BUILD CHURCHES IN THAT LAND. 
 
 As soon as these Indians returned, all those of that province 
 friendly to the Christians, and who heard of us, came to visit us, and 
 they brought us beads and feathers. We commanded them to build 
 churches and put crosses in them; for to that time none had been 
 raised ; and we made them bring the children of their principal men to 
 be baptized. 
 
 Then the captain made a solemn vow to God, not to invade nor 
 consent to invasion, nor to enslave any of that country and people to 
 whom we had guaranteed safety : and that this he would enforce and 
 defend until your Majesty, and the Governor Nuiio de Guzman, or the 
 Viceroy in your name, should direct what would be most to the service 
 of God and your Majesty. 
 
 After the children had been baptized, we departed for the town of 
 San Miguel, where, so soon as we came, Indians arrived who told us 
 that many people had come down from the mountains and were living 
 on the plains; that they had made churches, and crosses, and did all 
 that we required : and each day we heard how these things were going 
 on fully completing. 
 
 Fifteen days of our residence having passed, Alcaraz got back with 
 the Christians from the incursion, and they related to the captain the 
 manner in which the Indians had come down and peopled the plain; 
 that the towns were populous which before had been tenantless and 
 deserted, and that the residents had come forth to receive them with 
 crosses in their hands, and had taken them to their houses and given 
 them of what they had, and the Christians had slept with them over 
 night. They were astonished at a thing so novel; but, as the Indians 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. ?17 
 
 told them that they had been assured of their safety, it was ordered 
 that they should receive no injury, and the Christians took a friendly 
 leave. 
 
 God our Lord of his infinite mercy is pleased that in the days of 
 your Majesty, under your might and dominion, these nations should 
 come to be thoroughly and voluntarily subject to the true Lord, who 
 created and redeemed. We regard this as certain, and that your Majesty 
 is to be he who is to do so much, not difficult to accomplish; for in the 
 two thousand leagues we traveled on land, and on water in boats, and 
 in that which we traveled unceasingly for ten months after coming out 
 of captivity, we found neither sacrifices nor idolatry. In the time we 
 thus traversed from sea to sea, from the information gathered with great 
 diligence, it appears that from one to the other, at the widest part, may 
 be a distance of two thousand leagues, and we learnt that on the south 
 ern coast there are pearls and great riches, and that all the best and 
 most opulent countries are near there. 
 
 We were in the village of San Miguel until the fifteenth day of 
 May, and the cause of our so long detention was because from thence 
 to the city of Compostella, where the Governor, Nuilo de Guzman, 
 resided, there is a hundred leagues of country which was entirely devas 
 tated and filled with enemies, and where it was necessary we should 
 have protection. There went with us twenty mounted men for forty 
 leagues, and after that six Christians accompanied us, who had with 
 them six hundred slaves. Arrived at Compostella, the governor enter 
 tained us graciously, and gave us of his clothing for our own. I could 
 not for many days wear that which I had, nor could we sleep anywhere 
 but on the ground. After ten or twelve days we left for Mexico, and 
 all along on the way we were well entertained by Christians. Many 
 came out on the roads to gaze at us, and they gave thanks to God for 
 his having saved us through so many calamities. We arrived at Mexico 
 on Sunday, one day before the vespers of Saint lago, where we were 
 handsomely treated by the Viceroy and the Marquis del Valle,* and 
 welcomed with joy. They gave us clothes, and offered us whatsoever 
 they had. On the day of Saint Jago there was a celebration, and a 
 joust of reeds and bulls. 
 
 * Antonio de Mendoza and Ilernan Corts. TR. 
 
 30 
 
118 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 OF WHAT OCCUERED WHEN I WISHED TO RETURN. 
 
 AFTER I bud rested in Mexico two months, I desired to return to 
 these kingdoms, and being about to embark in the month of October, 
 there came a storm that capsized the ship, and she was lost. In conse 
 quence of this, I determined to remain until the winter had passed, for 
 in those parts it is a boisterous season for navigation. Alter the winter 
 had gone, Dorantes and I left Mexico about Lent, to take shipping at 
 Vera Cruz. We remained there waiting for wind until Palm Sunday, 
 when we went on board, where we were detained fifteen days longer for 
 a wind. In this time the vessel in which I was leaked a great deal, so 
 that I left her, and went to one of two others that were ready to sail, 
 but Dorantes remained. 
 
 On the tenth day of April, the three vessels left the port, and 
 sailed together one hundred and fifty leagues. Two of them made a 
 very great deal of water, and one night the vessel I was in lost their 
 company; for their navigators and masters, as it afterwards proved, 
 dared not proceed with the vessels; so, without telling us of their inten 
 tion, or leaving us to know more of them, they put back to the port 
 they had left. We pursued our voyage, and on the fourth day of May 
 we entered the harbor of Havana, in the Island of Cuba. We remained 
 there waiting for the other two vessels, believing them to be on their 
 way, until the second day of June, when we sailed, in much fear of 
 falling in with Frenchmen, as a few days before they had taken three 
 Spanish vessels. Having arrived at the Island of Bermuda, we were 
 struck by a storm such as take those who pass there, according to what 
 they say who sail thither. All one night we considered ourselves lost, 
 and I am thankful that when the morning came, the storm ceased and 
 we went on our course. 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 119 
 
 At the end of twenty-nine days after our departure from Havana, 
 we had sailed eleven hundred leagues, which it is said there are thence 
 to the town of Azores. The next day, passing by the island they call 
 Cueruo, we fell in with a French ship. At the hour of noon she began 
 to follow, bringing with her a caravel captured from the Portuguese, 
 and gave us chase. In the evening we saw nine other sail, but they 
 were so distant that we could not make out whether they were Portu 
 guese or of the same flag that pursued us. At dark the Frenchman 
 was within the shot of a lombard from our ship, and when it was dark 
 we stole from our course to evade him; and this we did three or four 
 times. It was at his pleasure to take us then, or leave us until the 
 morning. I remember with gratitude that when the sun rose, and we 
 found ourselves close with the Frenchman, that near us were the nine 
 sail which I have said we saw the evening previous, and which we now 
 recognized to be of the fleet of Portugal. I gave thanks to our Lord 
 for having saved me from the danger of the land and the perils of the 
 sea; for the Frenchman, as he discovered their character, let go the 
 caravel he had taken with a cargo of negroes as a prize, and which he 
 had kept with him to make us think he was a Portuguese, that we 
 might wait for him. When he cast her off he told the pilot and the 
 master of her that we were French and under his convoy. This said, 
 he put out sixty oars from his ship, and thus with these and sail, he 
 commenced to flee, moving so fast that it was hardly credible. The 
 caravel that he let go went to the galleon, and informed the commander 
 that our ship was French. As ours were drawing nigh to the galleon, 
 and all the fleet saw that we were coming down upon them, they made 
 no doubt that we were French, and, putting themselves in order of 
 battle, they bore up for us, and when near w r e hailed them. Finding 
 that we were friends, they discovered that they were mocked in permit 
 ting the corsair to escape them, by being told that we were French and 
 of his company. 
 
 Four caravels were sent in pursuit. The galleon drawing nigh, 
 after salutation from us, the commander, Diego de Silveira, asked us 
 whence we came, and what merchandize we carried; and we answered 
 him that we came from New Spain, and were loaded with silver and 
 gold. He asked us how much there might be; and the captain told 
 
120 THE SHIPWRECKS OF 
 
 him that we carried three hundred thousand castellanos. (TT) The com 
 mander answered, "Boa fe que venis muito ricos, pero trazedes muy 
 ruin navio y muyto ruyn artilleria, o fide puta can a renegade fraccs, y 
 que bon bocado perdio bota deus. Ora sus pos vos avedes escapade 
 seguime, y non vos apartedes de mi, que co ajuda de deus en vos porne 
 en Castela." (UU) 
 
 After a little time, the caravels that had pursued the Frenchman 
 returned, for plainly he moved too fast for them, and they did not wish 
 to leave the tleet, which was guarding three ships that came laden 
 with spices. Thus we reached the Island of Terceira, where we reposed 
 fifteen days, taking refreshment and waiting the arrival of another ship 
 that was coming with a cargo from India, and a companion of the three 
 of which the fleet came in charge. The time having run out, we parted 
 thence with the fleet, and arrived at the port- of Lisbon on the ninth of 
 August, in the afternoon of the day of our master, Saint Lawrence, in 
 the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-seven. 
 
 That it is true what I have stated in my foregoing narrative, I 
 subscribe it with my name. 
 
 CABEZA DE VACA. 
 
 The relation whence this has been copied, is signed with his name, 
 and bears the impress of his escutcheon. 
 
ALVAR NUSfEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 121 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 OF WHAT BEFELL THE REST WHO WENT TO THE INDIAS. 
 
 SIXCE giving this full account of the facts attending the voyage to 
 Florida, the invasion, and the going out from thence, and our return 
 into these realms, I desire to write what became of the ships, and the 
 persons that remained in them. I have not touched this before, for we 
 knew nothing about them until we came into New Spain, where we 
 found many of the persons, and others here in Castile, from whom we 
 heard the incidents and final event. 
 
 At the time we left the three ships, for one ship had been lost on 
 the breakers, they were in much danger, and there were on board near 
 a hundred souls with few stores. Among them were ten married 
 women, and one of them had told the Governor many things that 
 afterward befell him in the voyage. She cautioned him before he went 
 inland not to go, for that she was confident that neither he nor any that 
 were going with him would ever return ; but, if there should any come 
 back, the Almighty would work great wonders in his behalf, though 
 she believed that few or none would escape. The Governor said that 
 he and all that were to follow him were going to fight and conquer 
 many and very unknown nations and countries, and he knew that in 
 overcoming them many would be slain, but that those who survived 
 would arrive to no common fortune, as, from the information he had of 
 the great riches of that land, they must become very wealthy. And 
 further he said to her, that he begged she would inform him whence 
 she had learnt these things she had then spoken of, and before time. 
 She said to him that in Castile a Moorish woman of Hornachos had 
 told them to her. This she had said to us before we left Castile, and 
 while on the passage many things happened to us as she had predicted. 
 
122 THE SHIPWKECKS OF 
 
 After the Governor had made Caravallo, a native of Cuenca de 
 Iluete, his lieutenant and commander of the ships and people that were 
 left, with the order that they should use all diligence to repair on board, 
 and proceed directly on the way to Panuco, always keeping along the 
 shore, and examining the best they could for the harbor, and that on 
 finding it they should enter there and wait our arrival. They say that 
 when they had betaken themselves to the ships, all of them present 
 saw that woman, and distinctly heard her say to the females, that well, 
 since their husbands had gone inland and put their persons in so great 
 jeopardy, their wives should in no way take more account of them, but 
 ought soon to be looking after whom they would marry, for that she 
 should do so. She did accordingly, and she and the others were mar 
 ried, or became the concubines to those that remained in the ships. 
 
 After we left, the ships made sail and took up their course onward, 
 but did not find the harbor, and returned. Five leagues below the 
 place at which we had debarked, they found a harbor which entered 
 the land seven or eight leagues. It was the same that we had discovered 
 when we found the cases of Castile spoken of containing the dead bodies 
 of men, which proved to be those of Christians. In this haven, and 
 along this coast, the three ships passed with the other ships and the 
 brigantine that came from Cuba, looking for us nearly a year; and as 
 they did not find us they went to New Spain. 
 
 The haven of which we speak is the best in the world, and lies 
 inland seven or eight leagues. It has six fathoms of water at the 
 entrance, and five near the land. The bottom is fine white sand. There 
 is no sea on it, nor boisterous tempest, and it can shelter many vessels. 
 Fish are in abundance. It is a hundred leagues from Havana, a town 
 of Christians in Cuba, and is with it North and South. Here the north 
 east winds ever prevail; and vessels go from one to the other and return 
 in four days, for the reason that they sail either way on the quarter. 
 
 As I have given account of the ships, it may be well that I say 
 who are, and from what parts of these kingdoms come the persons whom 
 our Lord has been pleased to set free from these misfortunes. The first 
 is Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, native of Salamanca, son of Doctor 
 Castillo and Dona Aldonza Maldonado : the second is Andres Dorantes, 
 son of Pablo Dorantes, native of Bejar, and citizen of Gibraleon : the 
 
ALVAR NUXEZ CABEZA DE VACA. 123 
 
 third is Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, son of Francisco de Vera, and 
 grandson of Pedro de Vera, he that conquered the Canary ; (VV) and his 
 mother s name was Tereza Cabeza de Vaca, native of Xeres de la Fron- 
 tera. The fourth is named Estevanico : he is an Arabian black, native 
 of Azamor. 
 
 DEO GRACIAS. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 (A) lie arrived at the Island of San Domingo about the month of September, 
 in the year 1527, and he left Cuba, returning to Spain, on the 2d day of June, 
 1 537. From the time he landed in Florida until he arrived at the Spanish settle 
 ments on the Gulf of California there was an interval of eight years, and one 
 year more elapsed before he left Vera Cruz. 
 
 It is necessary, at the beginning, to understand his mode of reckoning time : 
 a day, and a part of the day before and of the one after, he would count as three 
 i lays. 
 
 (li) Vasco Porcallo dc Figueroa, the same who went with Soto from Cuba, as 
 his lieutenant-general in the year 1539, and returned to the Island from Tampa 
 Bay after the first skirmish. EL INCA, 1. i, c. xii. 
 
 (C) Seventeen and a half leagues, according to the usage of the Spanish and 
 Portuguese navigators of the time, measured one degree, which gives three and a 
 half geographical miles to each league. HEUKERA, His. General, d. iii, 1. vi, c. vii. 
 
 A mile will often be found nearer the distance accounted league in the narrative. 
 
 < D) Ovicdo speaks of biihms as distinguished from other forms of Indian habi 
 tations in being made with two sheds, "fcehas a dos aguas." The word was used 
 on Tierra Firme, and the Island of Ilispafiola, where Cabeza probably heard it; 
 but from what appears farther on in the narrative, he seems to have understood it 
 only as a general name. 
 
 natives. 
 
 :/ This appears to have been the first difficulty the Spaniards had with the 
 
 When Soto came with his army to a town of Tampa Bay, the cacique refused 
 to intrust his person with the Spaniards, giving as a reason, that Narvacz had 
 
126 NOTES. 
 
 caused his nose to be cut off and his mother to be torn in pieces by dogs. This is 
 according to the statement in Garcilasso, lib. ii, cap. ii ; but the narrative of the 
 Portuguese, of which I suppose Alvaro Fernandez to be the author, is silent on 
 the subject. There is nothing of it either in the report of Biedma, or in the letter 
 of Soto to the municipality of Saint Jago de Cuba, which gives a circumstantial 
 account of what had occurred since leaving Havana, to the 9th day of July, within 
 a short time of marching into the interior; nor does anything of the kind appear 
 in the relation of Herrera, which was sketched from additional authorities. If 
 such an act had been committed, it was little likely to have faded from the memory 
 of the High Sheriff; and it would seem quite as improbable that he could have 
 refrained from making it known. The report and the letter are known to the 
 public through the French translations of Ternaux. Recueil, HERRERA, d. vii, 1. 
 i, g. xv ; and 1. vii, c. xii. 
 
 < F) In the Second Part of De Bry s Voyages and Discoveries, there are pic 
 tures descriptive of the Indians and their customs, such as were observed by the 
 French chiefly about the entrance of the Saint John s River [River May], and not 
 long after the middle of the sixteenth century, which may be found interesting to 
 examine in connection with this account. The volume of Bernard Romans, "A 
 Concise History of East and West Florida," printed in 1775, and which, unfortu 
 nately, has become fully as scarce as this work, published toward the close of the 
 sixteenth century, shows the customs and character of the tribes along the Gulf 
 coast, seventy -five years ago, to have differed but little from those that Cabeza had 
 before described. 
 
 < G) It is difficult to designate the point at which Narvaez crossed the Sawanee 
 River, or to mark the line of country on his way thence to the sea. From the 
 length of time employed in marching from the Withlacooche River to the Sawanee, 
 it is pretty evident that he struck the river high up ; and from no river afterward 
 being spoken of in going to the sea, that he was conducted by the Indians through 
 the least fertile and least inhabited districts, they showing him a small town and 
 some fields of corn as all that composed Apalache. He appears to have been 
 guided along upon the boundaries between Georgia and Florida, about the heads 
 of the streams on which to the south a few years later were found considerable 
 towns, a numerous population, and extensive plantations : and they brought him 
 at last to a place distant from their dwellings. Garcilasso de la Vega, who seems 
 to have had this narrative before him at the time of writing his account of the 
 march of Soto, thinks that the course of Narvaez had been to the south of it, and 
 that the town was not the principal, but one of small importance. 
 
NOTES. 127 
 
 <" He means, no doubt, the elk, the antelope, and the common deer: the two 
 first he probably saw afterward farther to the west. 
 
 < ! > See Note X. 
 
 (K) The palmo, palm, is the measure of two linear quantities, the one of the 
 spread hand from the extremity of the little finger to that of the thumb ; the other 
 of the four fingers of the hand placed together. Diccionario de la lengua Castel- 
 lana, word "Palmo." 
 
 < L) Five fanegas measure nearly eight bushels ; so that the quantity of maize 
 got in Aute was about six hundred and forty bushels. KELLY S Universal Cambist. 
 
 < M) The appearance that this place presented in the year 1539, when visited 
 by a squadron from the army of Soto under Juan de Anasco, is thus stated by the 
 Ynca: 
 
 Guided by three Indians, they arrived at a very wide and spacious bay, and, 
 keeping its shore, they came to the place at which Pamphilo de Narvaez had 
 stopped. They saw where there had been a furnace in which were made the spikes 
 for his boats, and much charcoal was lying about it. They saw also some large 
 hollowed logs, which had been used as troughs for feeding horses. 
 
 The Indians showed them the place where the enemy had killed ten of the 
 Spaniards, and as Cabeza de Vaca has written it in his history. They took them 
 step by step over all that Narvaez had gone, and they pointed them to the spots 
 where such and such an event had passed. Finally, they left no memorable thing 
 which had occurred to Pamphilo de Narvaez in that bay untold, by signs and by 
 words well or badly understood, some of them spoken in the Castilian, which they 
 had learned beforetime. 
 
 The Captain Anasco and his soldiers sought diligently in the holes and 
 under the bark of trees for letters, in the places where it was the custom of the 
 discoverers to conceal them, that they might have account of what those who had 
 gone before had seen and observed ; but they discovered nothing they desired to 
 find. After this they followed the shore of the bay to the sea three leagues, and 
 with the ebb tide ten or twelve swimmers went out with some old canoes which 
 they found abandoned, and sounded the depths of the bay in mid-channel. Qa. 
 P. del L. 2o, cap. vi. 
 
 I am aware that in venturing to designate the bay of Apalachicola as that 
 of Cavallos, I have gone wide of the only point in the route on which history 
 appears to have settled with confidence, and that I have even run contrary to 
 some authority, such as that to be drawn from the account in Herrera of the 
 
128 NOTES. 
 
 march of Soto, and that of Charlevoix, who was at San Marcos de Apalache in 
 the year 1722, and there wrote: Cette Baye est pre cisement ce que Garcilasso 
 de la Vega appelle dans son Histoire de la Floride le Port d Aute". Let. xxxiv. 
 
 It is not improbable that the course of march through this country may yet 
 be ascertained with some particularity, perhaps with those additional circumstances 
 that would be known only to the Indians, and which the missionaries of Christ 
 ianity, who formed early settlements in Florida, are likely to have preserved in 
 their writings among matters of more sober interest. My expectations, however, 
 are very moderate; for in a long series of years the additions to the early history 
 of the southern portion of the United States have been very small. Of those 
 religious men we know even less of their perils and peaceful conquests, and only 
 but a little more of the destruction of their establishments, and a number of them 
 selves, in the early part of the eighteenth century. Some idea is formed of the 
 number and extent of these settlements from two sheets in the Atlas of Popple, 
 1773, and a map, Carolinae, Floridae, nee non Insularum, Bajamensium, cum 
 partibus adjacentibus delineatio; published at Nuremberg in the year 1775. 
 
 < N) In the year 1540, when the soldiers under Soto came to the town of Mavila, 
 they heard that Don Dorotheo, with his companion, had been there, and they were 
 shown a dirk that had been his. Relation par BIEDMA : Recueil, p. 72. 
 
 The Greek, having got thus far in safety, could have learned the difficulties 
 of traversing the region of water and swamp on the other side of the great river 
 in advance, and may have traveled inland. It is possible that, invited by the 
 appearance of a country plentiful in subsistence, and of a less barbarous people, 
 he may, as we shall see hereafter, have taken "the road to the cattle," and, getting 
 far north, have passed his life among the hunters of the bison. 
 
 < 0) Juego de herradura. The expression refers to the distance the bar of 
 iron is thrown in the exercise of elyuego de la barra, much practiced in Spain, and 
 the passion of the Navares. The instrument, often a crowbar, is grasped in the 
 middle and cast erect, so as to fall point downward. 
 
 < p) See DE BRY S Voyages and Discoveries, Part 1, xiii plate; also, Part 2, 
 iii plate. 
 
 (Q) These words, and others of like import in Biedma, I suppose to refer to a 
 discovery made in the first voyage of Garay. The northern shores of the Gulf of 
 Mexico, according to Peter Martyr, had been run by him in the year 1518. 
 
 " But Garaius searching those shores after the death of Johannes Pontius, 
 saith hee founde Florida, to be no Hand, but by huge crooked windings & turn- 
 
NOTES. 129 
 
 inges to bee ioyned to this mayne Continent of Tenustitan." * * * * "and as wee 
 gather by the Chart or map which Garaius his painters brought, it bendeth like 
 a bow, so that descending from Tenustitan to the North, it bendeth alwayes more 
 and more to the middle of a bowe. And presently againe it bendeth by litle 
 and litle to the >S outh, so that if a line be stretched from the shore of Teumtitan, 
 to that part of the lande which lohanncs Pontius first touched, from the North 
 side of Fernandina, it will make the string of the bow. Garaius thinketh that 
 coast to be very litle profitable, because he sawe tokens & signes of small store of 
 golde, and that not pure." De Rebus Oceanicis et Novo Orbe: LOK S translation, 
 5 D., 1 ch., fol. 176: also 8 D., 2 and :} ch. 
 
 In the third volume of Navarrete s collection of voyages and discoveries is 
 the royal patent issued in 1521 to Francisco Garay, authorizing him to colonize 
 the province of Amichel, on the main land, which, it sets forth, he had discovered 
 in the year 1519, with four ships under command of Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, 
 while sailing toward the cape of Florida searching for a strait; and that, according 
 to his report, the land of Florida intercepting his course, he sailed back, and, 
 following the coast along carefully, examined the country, ports, and rivers, until 
 he came upon Hernando Cortez on the same shore ; thence having marked the limit 
 of discovery of more than three hundred leagues, he sailed back, exploring, and 
 returned ; that accordingly, Diego Velasquez, Juan Ponce de Leon, and he, have 
 been the discoverers of all that land : and it is ordered that a surveyor settle the 
 lines of their discoveries. With this document is connected a plat of the decision. 
 The limit of Ponce on the Gulf is much farther to the north than the account in 
 Herrera will allow him to have sailed. The patent is of some interest. It enjoins 
 that the Indians are to be well treated and not enslaved, that the women are not 
 to be violated, promises are to be kept, and that no gaming, games, or cards are 
 to be allowed ; and no doubt in its time it constituted what would be called at this 
 day a close charter. 
 
 Conclusive as may seem to be the authority and the evidence for believing 
 these voyages to have been the first, there is still another map (for a knowledge 
 and a copy of which I am indebted to Peter Force), in the geography of Ptolo- 
 meus, printed at Venice in 1513, that gives with general accuracy the peninsula 
 of Florida, and a river in the Gulf coast that appears to have been intended to 
 represent the Mississippi. A geography under the same name, and with a like 
 map, was issued in 1525, whereon the region of Florida is marked Parias, as it 
 were to distinguish the Northern from the Southern continent, which is called 
 Terra Nova. A geography, "Orbis Typus," printed at Nuremberg in 1515, 
 contains a brief account of Parias, described as a large island, and of its inhabit 
 ants, their customs, and its products. 
 
130 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 \ 
 
 ft 
 
 WO 
 
 Ia50 tluzre r 
 
 tamh-ns 
 
 3J)rl<M 
 
NOTES. 131 
 
 (R) porque se havian passado do uria casa a otra. It means, probably, for 
 quitting one tribe to go to another ; as he says that those of a family or lineage 
 live apart from the rest. 
 
 < S) Mendez was one of the number who had been sent to Panuco; Esquivel 
 had belonged to the boat of the Controller and the Commissary. 
 
 < T) Bcrnal Diaz gives his portrait from recollection, after the lapse of half a 
 century, as he saw him in New Spain in the year 1520. 
 
 Narvaez was in appearance about forty-two years of age; tall, very muscular, 
 of full face, and had a red beard. He reasoned well, his presence was agreeable, 
 leisurely in discourse, with a voice of great volume, like that of one in a vault. 
 He rode well, and was reputed to be courageous. The place of his nativity was 
 Valadolid, or Tudela on the Duero. He was married to a lady Maria de Valcn- 
 zuela. He had been a captain in Cuba, was wealthy, and said to be penurious. 
 He had an eye put out in the time we overthrew him. He went to Castile to 
 complain of Cortez and us, and His Majesty conferred on him the government of 
 Florida, in which country he expended all his treasure and was lost. Ifistoria 
 Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva-lSspafla, cap. ccv. 
 
 ( U) The boat of the Comptroller met with the disaster at the mouth of Pensa- 
 cola Bay, and the people reached the land on the western shore. Being joined 
 there by those from the Governor s boat, they continued along the coast until 
 they came to the bay at the mouth of the Perdido River, whore they were crossed 
 by Narvaez to the opposite side. Before morning the boat, with the Governor in 
 it, had disappeared. The people continued their course until they arrived at the 
 entrance of the great bay, and, having made a raft, they reached the next shore, 
 which was that of an island, and, coming to the westernmost termination hungry, 
 cold, and famishing, they stopped for the conveniences and sustenance it afforded. 
 From this point the survivor was taken to the main in a canoe by one of the 
 Quevcnes, and afterward he escaped to the Mnriames. 
 
 This explanation may be found to reconcile the many particulars of the 
 account with the geography of the country. The m;ip, notwithstanding, is marked 
 to agree as far as possible with the text. The Perdido Bay is about thirty miles 
 in length, and from two to six miles wide." WILLIAMS Florida, l.^-">7. 
 
 In the year 1(5!)!), while MM. Chateaumorand and D Ibervillo wore exploring 
 the western coast of Florida, east of the Mississippi Kiver, the latter landed on 
 :ui island at the mouth of Mobile Bay, and near the main land. At that time it 
 had a commodious harbor, with five fathoms of water at all tides. When Charle- 
 voix wrote, 1727, it had been closed some years with sand thrown in by the sea, 
 
132 NOTES. 
 
 during a tempest. D lberville called the island Massacre, from discovering on the 
 south-west point of it the skeletons of some sixty persons with cooking utensils 
 about them, whom he judged to have been murdered. It is possible that these 
 may have been the remains, and here the resting place of the companions of Figue- 
 roa. 2 His. de la Nouvelle France, liv. xviii, p. 257. 
 
 The island has since undergone some physical changes. It became divided 
 north and south into two nearly equal portions, the western part taking or retaining 
 the name of Massacre, which it had been the purpose of the French colonists of 
 the year 1717 to extinguish. On the chart of a later authority, Romans, 1774, 
 a small island is placed to the west of them, which I do not find marked or men 
 tioned before; and in the description of Hutchins, 1784, the middle island appears 
 with the name of Petit-Bois. At the present time the disagreeable name is con 
 fined to the westernmost, a bank of sand covered by the sea at every tide, that in 
 a short time is likely to disappear. 
 
 ( v) It will be found pretty obvious that Cabeza de Vaca has generalized the 
 facts which belong to this part of the narrative with his subsequent experience, 
 and some of the information he obtained on coining upon the western prairies. 
 
 The bison was no doubt known to the East and South-east nearly as far as 
 the land extends. Romans says he saw the tracks of six or eight of these animals 
 between the sources of the Manatee and the Amazura (now Withlacooche) rivers 
 so plainly as to be satisfied of their presence. Buffalo, a cape in the bay of 
 Tampa, is the translation of Civola, a name given by the Spaniards. It is also 
 the name of a bluff near St. Mary s, Georgia. See Ausfiihrliche Nachricht von 
 den Saltzburgischen Emigranten, in America. Halle, 1335- 52. 
 
 < xv > NATIONAL OBSERVATORY, 
 
 WASHINGTON, June 22d, 50. 
 
 DEAR SIR I send you a table showing, both for Old and New Style, the new 
 moons that occurred nearest the first of September from 1530 to 1540. 
 
 It is probable that Cabeza de Vaca dated new moon from the time he first 
 saw it, and when it probably might have been a day old. If so, and if you take 
 it that the full moon occurred on the 13th, when he determined to flee, it would 
 bring the year to 1532, though it may have been in 1535, if we suppose him not 
 to be very particular as to the actual date of change days. 
 
 However, I send you the tabular statement, which Professor Keith, TJ. S. N., 
 has prepared. 
 
 Respectfully, &c., 
 
 M. F. MAURY. 
 BUCKINGHAM SMITH, Esq. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 133 
 
 
 C 
 
 Date, 
 Old Stylo. 
 
 S 
 
 A. D. 
 
 Date, Hour, 
 New Style. Civil Time. 
 
 1530 
 
 Aug. 22 
 
 Sept. 1 
 
 23.2 
 
 1531 
 
 Sept. 10 
 
 " 20 
 
 2(K5 
 
 1532 
 
 Aug. 30 
 
 " 9 
 
 17.6 
 
 1533 
 
 " 20 
 
 Aug. 30 
 
 8.4 
 
 1534 
 
 Sept. 8 
 
 Sept. 18 
 
 8.5 
 
 1535 
 
 Aug. 28 
 
 " 7 
 
 17.1 
 
 1536 
 
 " 16 
 
 Aug. 26 15.0 
 
 1537 
 
 Sept. 4 
 
 Sept. 14 
 
 11.4 
 
 1538 
 
 Aug. 24 
 
 " 3 
 
 11.1 
 
 1539 
 
 Sept. 12 
 
 " 22 
 
 6.2 
 
 1540 
 
 " 1 
 
 " 11 
 
 ll 
 
 < x) The Nacadoch ; the A, as in the case of Apalache, being probably intru 
 sive and Arabic. I am indebted for the idea of this orthography to a passage at 
 page 21, in "A Description of the English Province of Carolana," &c. By Daniel 
 Coxe. 1722. 
 
 (Y > The Adayes or Adaize lived in the year 1805, according to the report of 
 Dr. John Sibley, about forty miles from Natchitoches. Documents accompanying 
 President s Message, 1806. 
 
 < Z) "Muere," to die, is the word in the text. It is so reprinted in the edition 
 of Barcia, 1749. Probably the word should be mueve, to move or run, or muerde, 
 to bite. 
 
 jj e j las no (. S p k en before of having been among the Aguenes, nor does 
 the word occur but once, although the Spaniards must have been long in their 
 neighborhood. It may be another name for Yguases. They were always at war, 
 and Cabeza was for some time among them. 
 
 j h a v e marked in their succession on the maps the nations of savages living 
 along the shores, beginning with those of the Island of Santa Rosa, and going 
 west to the farthest limits "hasta los ultimos ay," which I conjecture to be about 
 the mouth of Pearl River, where the coast is first broken by the marshes of Louis 
 iana. Some of the names, and much the greater part, have received their localities 
 without positive authority, but in placing them an effort has been made to fix their 
 relative positions. The place of the arrival of Penalosa and Tellez, as marked, is 
 necessarily supposititious. 
 
134 NOTES. 
 
 (CC) rpj ie C a oques or Capoques may have been the Cadoqucs. Charlevoix 
 writes of the Caoquias as a tribe of the Illinois. He found them in the winter of 
 1721 reunited to the Tamarouas, a kindred tribe, composing the inhabitants of a 
 populous town on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, below its junction 
 with the Missouri. Lettre xxviii, pp. 3928. Other names are suggestive in their 
 sounds of other nations; the Aguenes of the Ayennes or Inies, the Charruco of 
 the Challakee, the Guaycones of the Tawak ones residing on the River "Wachita. 
 
 ca was ma( J e from the yupon, and universally drank throughout the 
 southernmost regions of the United States. In some parts where the plant did 
 not grow spontaneously, it was carefully cultivated. Le Moyne has given a picture 
 of Indians engaged in preparing and using it, under the name of cacine. Plate 
 xxix, and the text in DE BRY S Second Part of Voyages and Discoveries. Charle 
 voix tells how it is prepared, adds the name of apalachine, and gives a drawing 
 and description of the now well-known shrub, Ilex vomitiva. 
 
 rpj ie arro b a is nearly equal to four and a quarter gallons wine measure. 
 There is also the arroba of oil, measuring three and a third gallons. KELLY S 
 Universal Cambist. 
 
 < FF) Second part of DE BRY, plates xvii and xxiii. 1 Memoires Historiques 
 sur la Louisiane, chap, xxviii. By DUMONT. Paris, 1753. 
 
 ( GG) At times they (the Indians of Sonora) also avail themselves of the fruit 
 of the Tepeguajes, or Mezquites, a small kind of Algorova, abundant in that 
 country. It is crushed in large mortars of wood ; the flour is somewhat sweet and 
 well flavored, affording both drink and food. Pp. 6, 284. RIBAS, 1645. 
 
 According to the account given by a western trapper, " the mosquito trees 
 bear a pod in the shape of a bean, which is exceedingly sweet. It constitutes one 
 of the chief articles of Indian subsistence ; and they contrive to prepare from it 
 a very palatable kind of bread, of which we all became very fond. The wild 
 animals also feed upon this pod." The Personal Narrative of James 0. Pattie. 
 1833. 
 
 The so-called mezquite, says A. "VVislizenus, belongs to the family of the 
 mimosa;, and is a species of algorobia. Memoir of a Tour to Mexico, connected 
 with Col. Doniphan s Expedition in 18467. 
 
 These trees are not found to the east of the Mississippi River ; they are first 
 seen on drawing nigh the River Bravo del Norte in going to the west. The sweet 
 locust resembles the mezquite, and it is probably of the fruit of this that Cabeza 
 now speaks. 
 
NOTES. 135 
 
 ( in; rphe on ]y persons whom they may have been leaving behind them alive 
 were Theodoro, who went on shore in Saint Andrew s Bay, and the negro, Oviedo, 
 who returned towards Malhado, and Figueroa and the Asturian, who had last been 
 heard of as being on the coast near Pearl River, among the people of the figs. 
 
 < n) The story has its parallel. This passage is from a traveler who was at a 
 town of the Shoccories in the year 1701: "Most of these Indians have but one 
 Eye ; but what Mischance or Quarrel has bereaved them of the other I could not 
 learn." New Voyage to Carolana, ,j-c., by JOHN LAWSON, Gent., Surveyor-Gene 
 ral of North Carolina. London, 1709. 
 
 <KK) rjij^g cus t om among Indians is thus described by Romans as practiced by 
 the Muscogces. They make their boys "frequently undergo scratching from head 
 to foot through the skin with broken glass or garfish teeth, so as to make them all 
 in a gore of blood, and then wash them in cold water : this is with them the Arca 
 num against all diseases: but when they design it as a punishment to the boys, 
 they dry scratch them, (i. e.) they apply no water for the operation, which renders 
 it very painful." This people in 1774 had become mixed by numerous accessions 
 from the remnants of other tribes. P. 96. 
 
 ( - Because of the threatening privations of these plains, llanos estocados, 
 Moscoso, in the year 1542, turned towards the East, notwithstanding the riches of 
 the South Sea, the prospect of subsistence and repose for his army, and the con 
 tiguity of New Spain with the probable control of the great houses in the North, 
 of which "the Columbus of the land" had spoken. 
 
 If the route on the map from the Canadian River be found correct, it presents 
 a doubt as to the alleged direction of Coronado in the year 1541, towards the 
 North-east from a town thirty leagues to the North of Tihuex. It appears by the 
 relation of Castaficda, that, after many days travel, the army came to a village 
 where Cabeza de Vaca had been ; but the account by Jaramillo is, that they met 
 an aged Indian, who gave them to understand that he had seen Cabeza and the 
 rest, and nearer than they were then to New Spain. 
 
 Several circumstances attending this excursion awaken suspicions that the 
 guide conducted the army to the East and South from the place of setting out, 
 and they may even be considered to draw it somewhat strongly to those directions. 
 The Spaniards passed among herds of buffaloes and bands of roving savages "living 
 like Arabs," first the Querechos, and then the Teyas to the South of them, whom 
 they afterwards discovered to have the manners and characteristics of the people 
 living in Quivira. They were told that this town of which they were in search 
 was towards the North, and they returned under their direction by a nearer way 
 
136 NOTES. 
 
 and in a shorter time than they had gone out, arriving at Quivira, thirty leagues 
 to the South of the place of their departure. 
 
 On an English map of North America hy Eman Bowen, 1763, an Indian 
 town, Kiryreches, is put down on Red River, latitude 35 15 N., longitude 79 
 45 W. from Ferro. Conoatino, which may be the Cona of Castaneda, is marked 
 to the South of it about one degree and a half. 
 
 (MM) Poiyog ( } c paja. It was probably the seed of grass which they ate. I 
 am told by a distinguished explorer, that the Indians to the West collect it of 
 different kinds, and from the powder make bread, some of which is quite palatable. 
 
 jf ^e successive seasons of drought which had occurred to the East were 
 also felt here, it is not extraordinary that Cabeza did not speak of the River Bravo 
 del Norte, as he probably found it very low, presenting no interruption. The 
 incident of his passage through this country was long remembered by the Indians, 
 as appears in many accounts of early expeditions. Antonio de Espejo, who came 
 from the South in command of a military force in the year 1583, by the River 
 Conchos, while beyond its mouth observed some lights of religion among the natives, 
 who told him that they had been instructed in these by three white men and a 
 black ; and they brought their wives and children to receive the blessing from the 
 friars it had been the custom of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions to give. 
 Espejo speaks of these Indians as numerous, agricultural, and warlike, living in 
 towns having houses of stone, and occupying a large district of country. For 
 twelve days he passed through their territories in going to the North. Their name 
 was Jumanos, and were called by the Spaniards Patarabueyes. HACKLUYT, iii, 
 where the original is to be found with the translation. 
 
 - 
 
 (OO) rp ne y ucca resembles in appearance the palm tree, and thence commonly 
 called palmilla. There are several species, from three to fifty feet in height. The 
 root of the palmilla is "often used for washing instead of soap, and called amole; 
 it is a fibrous spongy mass, containing mucilaginous, and probably even alkaline 
 parts." WISLIZENUS Memoir, p. 36. 
 
 (Pi ) Polvo de bledo. The only explanation I can offer for these words is little 
 satisfactory. It was the practice of the Indians, both of New Spain and New 
 Mexico, to beat the ear of young maize, while in the milk, to a thin paste, hang it 
 in festoons in the sun, and, being thus dried, was preserved for winter use. The 
 recipe is in TORQUEMADA, lib. v, cap. xxx. 
 
NOTES. 137 
 
 (QQ) On remarqua dans cot endroit (Corazones) un poison qui, d apres cc quo 
 Ton vit, e"tait le plus dangcrcux que Ton put trouvcr; c dtait la seve d un petit 
 arbre scmblable au lantisque, qui il vicnt dans les terrains argileux. * * * Us (ccs 
 Indiens) combattirent centre nous autant qu ils purent. Us ont des poisons avec 
 les quels ils tuerent beaucoup de Chretiens. From tlie Relation given by Jararnillo 
 of tbe march of Coronado, in Ternaux. 
 
 Lieut. R. W. Hardy, R. N., in writing, a few years ago, of the trees and 
 plants that flourish, "more or less," in Lower California, mentions "the Yerba del 
 bcnado, and yerba de la flecha ; the latter used for intoxicating fish, and by some 
 tribes of Indians for poisoning arrows." 
 
 < RR> aquellos quo la usan llamamos propriamcnte Primahaitu (que es como 
 decir Vascongados) . By this he desires to express that the language and people 
 arc primitive, and like those of Vizcaya. For a long time I considered Primahaitu 
 to be the name of a nation, the Pimas with an additional word : at last primogenito 
 occurred to me as the true word, and I have rendered it, the meaning of the 
 remainder of the sentence having been before suspected. 
 
 (SS) Ribas describes the manners and customs of the Indians of Cinaloa with 
 seeming care and truth, and the region as affording variety of climate through 
 aridity and elevation. The valleys of the rivers, he says, produce maize, beans, 
 pumpkins, and cotton ; and the earth even to where the rills take their rise in the 
 mountains of Topia is penetrated to such a degree by the flood which annually 
 descends almost without failure, that with little labor, and without the assistance 
 of rain, come redundant harvests. 
 
 value of a castellano or peso de oro by weight, is three dollars seven 
 cents, American currency ; its comparative value in the early part of the sixteenth 
 century with what it is now, is eleven dollars sixty-seven cents. 1 PKESCOTT S 
 Peru, b. iii, ch. 7. 
 
 words are in Portuguese. " In honest truth you come very rich, 
 although you bring a very sorry ship, and a still poorer artillery. O ! I declare 
 to Heaven, that renegade whoreson Frenchman has lost a good mouthful. Now 
 that you have escaped follow me, and do not leave me, that I may, with God s 
 help, deliver you in Castile." 
 
 < VV) The Fortunate Islands, seven in number, were known first to the people 
 of Carthage, who colonized them. They were forgotten after the downfall of the 
 
 i 
 
 35 
 
138 NOTES. 
 
 city, until A. D. 1405, when they were found by Betanchor under Castile and 
 Leon, and called the Canaries. He conquered and settled two of them, and two 
 more were subdued by Fernando Percria and wife. "The other three," says Peter 
 Martyr (Eden s translation), "were subdued in our tyme;" the largest, which is 
 the Gran Canaria, one hundred and fifty miles in circumference, by Pedro do Vera, 
 a citizen of Xeres, and Miguel de Moxica; and the two remaining by Alphonso 
 Lugo, at the expense of the crown. De Rebus Oceanicis et Nove Orbe, i d., i b., 
 fol. 8. His. General de las Indias, lib. i, cap. v, fo. vi, 2. 
 
v, n-,,.,h~i> r 
 
1/tr.yff/ /////// t/ts< tf/trnt 
 
 ./////// I ottt t 
 
 Demle infill rumen -.<> 
 <i ilfXfiihrir Frtinrixi o 
 
 A "ili l K.i/iiritti xiuito 
 
RETURN TO the circulation desk of any 
 University of California Library 
 or to the 
 
 NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station 
 University of California 
 Richmond, CA 94804-4698 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 2-month loans may be renewed by callina 
 5/0 (445) 642-6753 
 
 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books 
 to NRLF 
 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days 
 prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 OCT? 1992 
 
 AUG 1 7 1992 
 
 AUTO DISC CIRC ^613-92 
 
 AUG15l99b 
 
 -WNOV96