Chapter Index

× Proem 1. Which Tells When the Fleet Sailed, and of the Officers and People Who Went with It 2. How the Governor Came to the Port of Xagua and Brought a Pilot with Him 3. How We Arrived in Florida 4. How We Entered the Land 5. How the Governor Left the Ships 6. How We Entered Apalachee 7. What the Land is Like 8. How We Left Aute 9. How We Left the Bay of Horses 10. Of Our Skirmish with the Indians 11. What Happened to Lope de Oviedo with Some Indians 12. How the Indians Brought Us Food 13. How We Found Out about Other Christians 14. How Four Christians Departed 15. What Happened to Us in the Village of Misfortune 16. How Some Christians Left the Isle of Misfortune 17. How the Indians Came and Brought Andrés Dorantes and Castillo and Estebanico 18. How He Told Esquivel's Story 19. How the Indians Left Us 20. How We Escaped 21. How We Cured Some Sick People 22. How They Brought Other Sick People to Us the Following Day 23. How We Left after Having Eaten the Dogs 24. About the Customs of the Indians of That Land 25. How the Indians Are Skilled with a Weapon 26. About the Peoples and Languages 27. How We Moved On and Were Welcomed 28. About Another New Custom 29. How They Stole from One Another 30. How the Custom of Welcoming Us Changed 31. How We Followed the Corn Route 32. How They Gave Us Deer Hearts 33. How We Saw Traces of Christians 34. How I Sent for the Christians 35. How the Mayor Received Us Well the Night We Arrived 36. How We Had Them Build Churches in That Land 37. What Happened When I Wanted to Leave 38. What Happened to the Others Who Went to the Indies
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we should not be saddened by it, because they were so glad to see us that they considered their belongings well spent. They said they would be repaid later on by others who were very rich.

We had a great deal of difficulty all along the way because so many people were following us. We couldn't escape them even if we tried, because they were in a great hurry to reach us and touch us. They were so insistent about this that sometimes three hours would go by and still we could not make them leave us alone. The following day they brought us all the people of the village. Most of them were clouded in one eye and others totally blind because of the same cause, which astonished us. They are very well built people with fine features, whiter than any others we had seen.

Here we began to see mountains, which seemed to come all the way from the North Sea. From the information the Indians gave us about this, we believe that they are fifteen leagues from the sea. We left with these Indians towards this mountain range. They led us through a place where their kinsmen lived, since they wanted to take us only to places where their kinfolks lived. They did not want their enemies to profit even from seeing us. When we arrived, the people who led us there looted the others. Since they were familiar with the custom, they had hidden some things before we arrived. After they had welcomed us with much festivity and rejoicing, they retrieved what they had hidden and came to present it to us. The items were beads, red ochre and some small bags of silver. Following the custom, we gave it to the Indians who had come with us. Once they had given it to us, they began their dances and festivities and sent for others from a neighboring village to come see us. That afternoon they all came, bringing us beads and bows and other things that we distributed.

The following day when we wanted to leave, everybody wanted to take us to where some friends of theirs