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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when they think it is to their advantage. When we approached the dwellings, all the people came out to greet us with considerable pleasure and festivity. Two of their medicine men gave us, among other things, two gourds. From here on we began to carry the gourds with us, and added to our authority with this bit of ceremony, which is very important to them. Those who had accompanied us looted their lodges, but since there were many people in that village and there were only a few of them, they could not carry all that they took and had to leave more than half.

From here we began penetrating the land for more than fifty leagues along the slope of the mountains. At the end our journey we found forty dwellings. Among the things the people there gave us was a thick rattle, large and made of copper, with a face on it. They let us know that they regarded it highly, and told us that they had gotten it from others who were their neighbors. When we asked them where the neighbors had gotten it, they said that they had brought it from the North, where there was much wealth, and it was greatly valued. We realized that wherever the object had come from there was smelting and metal casting.

With this we departed the following day and crossed a mountain range seven leagues in length, where the rocks were iron slags. At nightfall we reached a large number of dwellings on the bank of a beautiful river. The inhabitants came out to welcome us carrying their children. They gave us many small bags of mica and powdered antimony. They rub this on their faces. They also gave us many beads and many buffalo-skin blankets and loaded all of us with everything they had. They eat prickly pears and pine nuts. In that land there are small pine trees, with cones the size of small eggs. Their seeds are better than the pine nuts from Castile because their husks are thinner. They grind them when they are green and make pellets out of them and eat them that way. If they are dry they grind them with husks and eat the powder.

All those who greeted us there ran back to their lodges once they had touched us