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 91

There are three kinds of deer there; one kind is as large as the yearling steers of Castile. They have permanent dwellings called buhios and poison from a tree the size of an apple tree. All that is necessary is to pick the fruit and rub it on an arrow. If there is no fruit, they break a branch and do the same with the milky sap. There are many of these trees, which are so poisonous that if the leaves are crushed and washed in water, any deer or other animals that drink the water later burst. We stayed in this village three days. A day's Journey from there was another village. There it rained so much that we could not cross a river, that had risen very much; so we had to wait two weeks. At this time Castillo saw a buckle from a sword belt around an Indian's neck, with a horseshoe nail sewn to it. Castillo took it away from him and we asked the Indian what it was. They replied that it had come from heaven. We questioned them further, asking them who had brought it from there. They told us that some bearded men like us, with horses, lances and swords, had come there from heaven and gone to that river and had speared two Indians. Trying very hard to act disinterested, we asked them what had happened to those men. They replied that the men went down to the sea, put their lances underwater and then went under the water themselves. Then they saw them go over the water towards the sunset. We gave great thanks to God our Lord when we heard this, since we doubted we would ever have news of Christians. On the other hand, we felt sad and bewildered, thinking that those men might have been only explorers who arrived by sea. But since we had such sure evidence about them, we finally decided to go faster on our way, where we heard more news about Christians. We told the people we were looking for the Christians so that we could tell them not to kill them or take them as slaves

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