in another that he gave to the Purser and the Commissary went an equal number; the third he gave to Captain Alonso del Castillo and to Andrés Dorantes with forty-eight men; another to two captains named Téllez and Peñalosa with forty-seven men. After we loaded provisions and clothing, there was no more than one xeme above the water line. Besides this, we were squeezed in so tightly that we could not move. So great was our hardship that it forced us to venture out in this manner and to go out into such rough seas, without having anyone with us who knew the art of navigation.

CHAPTER NINE

How We Left the Bay of Horses

The bay from which we departed is called the Bay of Horses. We traveled seven days through those bays in waist-deep water without seeing any sign of the open sea. Then we arrived at an island near the mainland. My boat was first. We saw five Indian canoes coming from the island, and the Indians abandoned the canoes when they saw us approaching them and left the canoes in our possession. The other boats overtook us and put in at some lodges on the island. There we saw many dried mullet and roe, which relieved our great hunger. After we took them, we went ahead, and two leagues from there passed a channel between the island and the mainland which we called San Miguel in honor of the day on which we sailed out through it. Once through it, we were on the open seacoast, where we used the canoes I had taken from the Indians to improve our boats, making washboards from them and securing them in such as way that our vessels rose two spans above the water.

We then turned our attention to