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
TOC
La Relación - page 30

When morning came, many Indians in canoes came to us asking us to give them the two men they had left as hostages. The Governor said he would hand them over when they brought back the two Christians they had taken. Five or six chiefs came with these people and they seemed to us to be the handsomest people, and with the most authority and composure we had yet seen, although they were not as tall as the others we had described. They wore their hair loose and long and wore sable mantles like those we had already obtained. Some of them were made in a very strange fashion with laces made from tawny skins and they appeared very attractive. They entreated us to go with them, saying that they would hand over the Christians and give us water and many other things. All the while many canoes were approaching us, trying to secure the mouth of the inlet. Because of this and because the country was too dangerous for us to remain, we put out to sea, where we remained with them until midday. As they would not return our Christians, and for this reason neither would we hand over the Indians, they began to throw sticks and sling rocks at us. They gave signs of wanting to shoot arrows at us, but we saw only three or four bows among all of them. While we were engaged in this skirmish, a chilly wind came up and they turned away and left us. We sailed that day until the hour of vespers, when my boat, which was in the lead, saw a point of land on the other side of which could be seen a very large river. I put up at an islet at the tip of the land to wait for the other boats. The Governor did not want to approach it, and instead entered a bay very close-by in which there were many islets. We gathered there and in the sea took on fresh water, because the river emptied out into the sea in a torrent. We landed on that island because we wanted to toast some of the corn we were carrying, since we had been eating it raw for two days.

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