La Relación - page 38

La Relación - page 38

agreed to repair their boat and leave in it with those strong enough and willing. The others would stay there until they convalesced and were able to go along the coast to wait until God would take them with us to a land of Christians. We set out to do what we planned. Before we launched the boat, Tavera, a gentleman of our company, died. And the boat that we intended to take met its end when it could not stay afloat and sank.

We considered the conditions we were left in, most of us naked and with the weather too severe to travel and swim across rivers and inlets. We had no provisions nor means of carrying them. Therefore we decided to do what we were forced to do and spend the winter there. We decided that the four strongest men should go to Panuco, since we thought we were near it, and that if God our Lord should be pleased to take them there, they should tell them how we were stuck on that island with great need and affliction. These were very good swimmers; one, a Portuguese carpenter and sailor, was named Alvaro Fernández; the second was named Méndez; the third, Figueroa, was a native of Toledo; the fourth, Astudillo, was a native of Zafra. They took with them an Indian from the island.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
How Four Christians Departed

A few days after these four Christians left, the weather turned so cold and stormy that the Indians could no longer pull up roots and could catch nothing in the cane weirs they used for fishing. And since their lodges offered so little shelter, people began to die. Five Christians who had taken shelter on the coast became so desperate that they ate one another one by one until there was only one left, who survived because the others were not there to eat him. Their

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