La Relación - page 12

La Relación - page 12

and a notary named Jerónimo de Alániz. He told us that he wanted to go inland while the ships sailed the coast until they arrived at the harbor, which the pilots said and believed was very near there, on the way to the River of Palms. And he asked us to give him our opinion. I answered that under no circumstances should he leave the ships until they were in a secure and populated harbor, and that he should beware, for the pilots were uncertain and did not agree on the same thing, nor did they know where they were. Besides this, the horses were in no condition to be of use to us if we needed them. Furthermore, we were traveling without an interpreter, unable to speak to the Indians, and therefore had a difficult time communicating with them. I added that we did not know what we wanted from the land, and that we were entering a land for which we had no description, without knowing what kind of place it was, nor by what people it was inhabited, nor in which part of it we were. Moreover, we did not have sufficient provisions to enter an unknown land. Since little remained on the ships, each man could receive for the journey inland no more rations than one pound of biscuit and one of bacon. I said that I thought we should set sail and seek a harbor and a land more suitable for settlement, since what we had seen so far was as desolate and as poor as any that had ever been found in those regions.

The Commissary thought quite the contrary, saying that we should not embark except to go along the coast in search of the harbor, for the pilots said that it would be only ten or fifteen leagues from there on the way to Panuco, and that it was impossible not to come upon it if we kept to the coast, since they said that the harbor extended twelve leagues inland, and that the first to arrive should await the others there. He said that putting out to sea would be tempting God, because since leaving Castile we had experienced so many hardships, so many storms, so many losses of persons and ships before arriving there. For these

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