_How the Governor arrived at Palache, and was informed that
there was much gold inland._
On the twenty-third day of September the Governor left Napetaca, and
went to rest at a river, where two Indians brought him a deer from
the cacique of Uzachil; and the next day, having passed through a
large town called Hapaluya, he slept at Uzachil. He found no person
there; for the inhabitants, informed of the deaths at Napetaca, dared
not remain. In the town was found their food, much maize, beans, and
pumpkins, on which the Christians lived. The maize is like coarse
millet; the pumpkins are better and more savory than those of Spain.
Two captains having been sent in opposite directions, in quest of
Indians, a hundred men and women were taken, one or two of whom were
chosen out for the Governor, as was always customary for officers to
do after successful inroads, dividing the others among themselves and
companions. They were led off in chains, with collars about the neck,
to carry luggage and grind corn, doing the labor proper to servants.
Sometimes it happened that, going with them for wood or maize, they
would kill the Christian, and flee, with the chain on, which others
would file at night with a splinter of stone, in the place of iron,
at which work, when caught, they were punished, as a warning to
others, and that they might not do the like. The women and youths,
when removed a hundred leagues from their country, no longer cared,
and were taken along loose, doing the work, and in a very little time
learning the Spanish language.
From Uzachil the Governor went towards Apalache, and at the end of
two days' travel arrived at a town called Axille. After that, the
Indians having no knowledge of the Christians, they were come upon
unawares, the greater part escaping, nevertheless, because there were
woods near town. The next day, the first of October, the Governor
took his departure in the morning, and ordered a bridge to be made
over a river which he had to cross. The depth there, for a stone's
throw, was over the head, and afterward the water came to the waist,
for the distance of a crossbow-shot, where was a growth of tall and
dense forest, into which the Indians came, to ascertain if they could
assail the men at work and prevent a passage; but they were dispersed
by the arrival of crossbowmen, and some timbers being thrown in, the
men gained the opposite side and secured the way. On the fourth day
of the week, Wednesday of St. Francis,[242] the Governor crossed over
and reached Uitachuco, a town subject to Apalache, where he slept. He
found it burning, the Indians having set it on fire.
[242] St. Francis's day is the fourth of the month (October), but
it was not Wednesday in 1539. Ranjel says that the crossing was
finished on Friday, October 3.
Thenceforward the country was well inhabited, producing much corn,
the way leading by many habitations like villages. Sunday, the
twenty-fifth of October,[243] he arrived at the town of Uzela,[244]
and on Monday at Anhayca Apalache, where the lord of all that country
and province resided. The camp-master, whose duty it is to divide and
lodge the men, quartered them about the town, at the distance of half
a league to a league apart. There were other towns which had much
maize, pumpkins, beans, and dried plums of the country, whence were
brought together at Anhayca Apalache what appeared to be sufficient
provision for the winter. These _ameixas_[245] are better than those
of Spain, and come from trees that grow in the fields without being
planted.
[243] This should be Sunday, October 5. October 25, 1539, came on
Saturday.
[244] Calahuchi, according to Ranjel. The modern name may be
Chattahuchi.
[245] This word means plums, but when applied to the American
fruit, it has reference to the persimmon.
Informed that the sea was eight leagues distant, the Governor
directly sent a captain thither, with cavalry and infantry, who found
a town called Ochete, eight leagues on the way; and, coming to the
coast, he saw where a great tree had been felled, the trunk split
up into stakes, and with the limbs made into mangers. He found also
the skulls of horses. With these discoveries he returned, and what
was said of Narvaez was believed to be certain, that he had there
made boats,[246] in which he left the country, and was lost in them
at sea. Presently Juan de Añasco made ready to go to the port of
Espiritu Santo, taking thirty cavalry, with orders from the Governor
to Calderon, who had remained there, that he should abandon the town,
and bring all the people to Apalache.
[246] The bay where Narvaez built his brigantines was known to
the Spaniards as Bahia de Caballos, or Horse Bay. The modern name
is Bay Ocklockonee.
In Uzachill, and other towns on the way, Añasco found many people who
had already become careless; still, to avoid detention, no captures
were made, as it was not well to give the Indians sufficient time
to come together. He went through the towns at night, stopping at a
distance from the population for three or four hours, to rest, and at
the end of ten days arrived at the port. He despatched two caravels
to Cuba, in which he sent to Doña Ysabel twenty women brought by
him from Ytara and Potano, near Cale; and, taking with him the
foot-soldiers in the brigantines, from point to point along the coast
by sea, he went towards Palache. Calderon with the cavalry, and some
crossbowmen of foot, went by land. The Indians at several places
beset him, and wounded some of the men. On his arrival, the Governor
ordered planks and spikes to be taken to the coast for building a
piragua, into which thirty men entered well armed from the bay, going
to and coming from sea, waiting the arrival of the brigantines, and
sometimes fighting with the natives, who went up and down the estuary
in canoes. On Saturday, the twenty-ninth of November, in a high wind,
an Indian passed through the sentries undiscovered, and set fire
to the town, two portions of which, in consequence, were instantly
consumed.
On Sunday, the twenty-eighth of December, Juan de Añasco arrived;
and the Governor directed Francisco Maldonado, captain of infantry,
to run the coast to the westward with fifty men, and look for an
entrance; proposing to go himself in that direction by land on
discoveries. The same day, eight men rode two leagues about the
town in pursuit of Indians, who had become so bold that they would
venture up within two crossbow-shot of the camp to kill our people.
Two were discovered engaged in picking beans, and might have escaped,
but a woman being present, the wife of one of them, they stood to
fight. Before they could be killed, three horses were wounded, one
of which died in a few days. Calderon going along the coast near
by, the Indians came out against him from a wood, driving him from
his course, and capturing from many of his company a part of their
indispensable subsistence.
Three or four days having elapsed beyond the time set for the going
and return of Maldonado, the Governor resolved that, should he not
appear at the end of eight days, he would go thence and wait no
longer; when the captain arrived, bringing with him an Indian from
a Province called Ochus, sixty leagues from Apalache, and the news
of having found a sheltered port with a good depth of water. The
Governor was highly pleased, hoping to find a good country ahead; and
he sent Maldonado to Havana for provisions, with which to meet him at
that port of his discovery, to which he would himself come by land;
but should he not reach there that summer, then he directed him to go
back to Havana and return there the next season to await him, as he
would make it his express object to march in quest of Ochus.
Francisco Maldonado went, and Juan de Guzman remained instead,
captain of his infantry. Of the Indians taken in Napetuca, the
treasurer, Juan Gaytan, brought a youth with him, who stated that he
did not belong to that country, but to one afar in the direction of
the sun's rising, from which he had been a long time absent visiting
other lands; that its name was Yupaha, and was governed by a woman,
the town she lived in being of astonishing size, and many neighboring
lords her tributaries, some of whom gave her clothing, others gold in
quantity. He showed how the metal was taken from the earth, melted,
and refined, exactly as though he had seen it all done, or else the
Devil had taught him how it was; so that they who knew aught of
such matters declared it impossible that he could give that account
without having been an eye-witness; and they who beheld the signs he
made, credited all that was understood as certain.