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 47

Two days after Lope de Oviedo left, the Indians holding Alonso del Castillo and Andrés Dorantes came to the aforementioned place, to eat those nuts, upon which they subsist solely for two months of the year, ground with small grains. And they do not have this every year because they only come here every other year. The nuts are the size of Galician walnuts and grow on very large trees, of which there are many.' An Indian informed me that the Christians had arrived, telling me that if I wanted to see them I should hide and flee to the edge of a forest towards which he pointed, because he and some relatives of his were going to see those Indians and would take me with them to where the Christians were. I decided to trust them and follow the suggestion, because they spoke a language different from that of my Indians. The next day we carried out the plan and they found me in the place we had agreed upon and took me with them. When I arrived near the place where they lived, Andrés Dorantes came out to see who it was, since the Indians had told him that a Christian was coming. When he saw me he was terrified because they thought I had died many days before, and the Indians had told them so. We thanked God very much for being together, and that day was one of the happiest of our lives. When we got to where Castillo was, they asked me where I was going. I told him that my plan was to go to a land of Christians and that I wanted to undertake that search and course. Andrés Dorantes replied that he had been urging Castillo and Estebanico to press onward, but that they did not dare because they did not know how to swim and greatly feared the rivers and inlets they would have to cross, for there are many in that land. Since God our Lord had seen fit to spare me through all my hardships and illnesses and bring me at last to be with them, I agreed to carry them across any rivers or bays

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