who turned her up for the purpose of extracting nails or pieces of iron;
and, breaking through the deck, they drew out the dead men.
Don Diego Enriquez expired in their hands, and they stripped him, and
took away the jewels and money which they (the dead men) had, casting
the bodies aside without burying them.
And because it is a wonderful occurrence, and true without doubt (of a
certainty), I have wished to narrate it to you in order that it may be
known there (on your side) the manner in which this gentleman died.
And as it would not be right to omit to mention my own good fortune, and
how I got to land, I say that I placed myself on the top of the poop of
my ship, after having commended myself to God and to Our Lady, and from
thence I gazed at the terrible spectacle. Many were drowning within the
ships; others, casting themselves into the water, sank to the bottom
without returning to the surface; others on rafts and barrels, and
gentlemen on pieces of timber; others cried aloud in the ships, calling
upon God; captains threw their chains and crown-pieces into the sea; the
waves swept others away, washing them out of the ships.
While I was regarding this solemn[20] scene, I did not know what to do,
nor what means to adopt, as I did not know how to swim, and the waves
and storm were very great; and, on the other hand, the land and the
shore were full of enemies, who went about jumping and dancing with
delight at our misfortunes; and when any one of our people reached the
beach, two hundred savages and other enemies fell upon him and stripped
him of what he had on until he was left in his naked skin. Such they
maltreated and wounded without pity, all of which was plainly visible
from the battered ships, and it did not seem to me that there was
anything good happening on any side.
I went to the Judge Advocate--God pardon him!--he was very sorrowful and
depressed, and I said to him that he should make some provision for
saving his life before the ship went to pieces, as she could not last
for half a quarter of an hour longer; nor did she last it.
Most of her complement of men and all the captains and officers were
already drowned and dead when I determined to seek means of safety for
my life, and placed myself upon a piece of the ship that had been broken
off, and the Judge Advocate followed me, loaded with crown-pieces, which
he carried stitched up in his waistcoat and trousers.
There was no way to detach the portion of wreck from the ship's side, as
it was held fast by some heavy iron chains, and the sea and the pieces
of timber floating about loose struck it, nearly killing us.
I managed to find another resource, which was to take the cover of a
hatchway, about as large as a good-sized table, that by chance the mercy
of God brought to my hand. When I tried to place myself upon it, it sank
with me to a depth of six times my height below the surface, and I
swallowed so much water that I was nearly drowned.
When I came up again, I called to the Judge Advocate, and I managed to
get him upon the hatchway cover with myself. In the act of casting-off
from the ship, there came a huge wave, breaking over us in such a manner
that the Judge Advocate was unable to resist it, and the wave bore him
away and drowned him, crying out and calling upon God while drowning.
I could not aid him, as the hatchway cover, being without weight at one
end, began to turn over with me, and at that moment a piece of timber
crushed my legs.
With great exertion, I righted myself upon my supporting timber; and,
supplicating Our Lady of Ontañar, there came four waves, one after the
other, and, without knowing how, or knowing how to swim, they cast me
upon the shore, where I emerged, unable to stand, all covered with
blood, and very much injured.
The enemies and savages, who were on the beach stripping those who had
been able to reach it by swimming, did not touch me nor approach me,
seeing me, as I have said, with my legs and hands and my linen trousers
covered with blood. In this condition I proceeded, little by little, as
I could, meeting many Spaniards stripped to the skin, without any kind
of clothing whatsoever upon them, chattering with the cold, which was
severe, and thus I stopped for the night in a deserted place, and was
forced to lie down upon some rushes on the ground, with the great pain I
suffered in my leg.
Presently a gentleman came up to me, a very nice young fellow, quite
naked, and he was so dazed that he could not speak, not even to tell me
who he was; and at that time, which would be about nine o'clock at
night, the wind was calm and the sea subsiding. I was then wet through
to the skin,[21] dying with pain and hunger, when there came up two
people--one of them armed, and the other with a large iron axe in his
hands--and upon reaching me and the other [man] who was with me, we
remained silent, as if we had not anything amiss [with us]. They were
sorry to see us; and without speaking a word to us, cut a quantity of
rushes and grass, covered us well, and then betook themselves to the
shore to plunder and break open[22] money-chests and whatever they might
find, at which work more than two thousand savages and Englishmen, who
were stationed in garrisons near there, took part.
Managing to rest a little, I began to doze; and when fast asleep, at
about one o'clock in the night, I was disturbed by a great noise of men
on horseback--there were more than two hundred of them--who were going to
plunder and destroy the ships. I turned to call my companion, to see if
he slept, and found he was dead, which occasioned me great affliction
and grief. I got to know afterwards that he was a man of position. There
he lay on the ground with more than six hundred other dead bodies which
the sea cast up, and the crows and wolves[23] devoured them, without
there being any one to bury them: not even poor Don Diego Enriquez.
At the dawn of day I began to walk, little by little, searching for a
monastery of monks, that I might repair[24] to it [or might recover in
it] as best I could, which I arrived at with much trouble and toil. I
found it deserted, and the church and images of the saints burned and
completely ruined, and twelve Spaniards hanging within the church by the
act of the Lutheran English, who went about searching for us to make an
end of all of us who had escaped [from the perils of the sea. All the
monks had fled] to the woods[25] for fear of the enemies, who would have
sacrificed them as well if they had caught them, as they were accustomed
to do, leaving neither place of worship nor hermitage standing; for they
had demolished them all, and made them drinking-places for cows and
swine.
In order that you may occupy yourself somewhat after dinner, by way of
amusement, in reading this letter, which will almost appear as if taken
from some book of chivalry, I write it at such length, so that you may
imagine the risks and hardships that I have experienced.
As I did not meet with any one at the said monastery, except the
Spaniards hanging within from the iron window gratings of the church, I
sallied forth speedily, and betook myself to a road which lay through a
great wood. When I had gone by it for the matter of a mile, I met with a
woman of more than eighty years of age, a rough savage, who was carrying
off five or six cows to hide them in that wood, so that the English who
had come to stop in her village might not take them.
As she saw me, she stopped and recognised me, and said to me: "Thou
Spain." I said yes to her by signs, and that I had been shipwrecked. She
began to lament much and to weep, making me signs that I was near her
house, but not to go there, as there were numerous enemies in it, and
they had cut the heads off many Spaniards. All this was affliction and
hardship for me, as I travelled alone, and badly injured by a stick of
timber, which almost broke my legs in the water.
At last, with the information of the old woman, I decided to go to the
shore, where the ships lay that were wrecked three days before, where
many parties of people went about carting away and removing to their
huts all our effects [spoils].
I did not venture to show myself, nor to approach them, in order that
they might not strip me of the poor linen garment I had on my back or
kill me, until I saw two poor Spanish soldiers approaching, stripped
naked as when they were born, crying out and calling upon God to help
them.
The one bore a bad wound in the head, which they had given him when
stripping him. They came to me, as I called to them from where I was
concealed, and recounted to me the cruel deaths and punishments which
the English had inflicted upon more than one hundred Spaniards they had
taken.
With this intelligence there was no lack of affliction; but God gave me
strength; and after I had commended myself to Him, and to His blessed
Mother, I said to those two soldiers: "Let us proceed to the ships where
these people are going about plundering, perhaps we shall find something
to eat or drink, for it is certain that I shall die of hunger." And
going in that direction, we began to see dead bodies, which was a great
grief and pity to see those whom the sea continued casting up. There
were stretched out upon that strand more than four hundred, among whom
we recognised some, and the poor Don Diego Enriquez, whom, with all my
sad plight, I did not wish to pass by without burying him in a pit,
which we made in the sand, at the water's edge. We laid him there along
with another very honourable captain, a great friend of mine, and we had
not quite finished burying them, when there came up to us two hundred
savages, to see what we were doing. We said to them, by signs, that we
were placing there those men who were our brothers, that the crows might
not eat them.
Then we went off, and searched for something to eat along the shore--of
biscuits, which the sea was casting up--when four savages came up to me
to strip me of the clothing which I wore, and another was grieved and
took them away; seeing that, they began to maltreat me: and he may have
been a chief, for they respected him.
This man, by the grace of God, assisted me and my two companions, and
brought us away from there, and remained a good while in our company,
until he put us on a road which led from the coast to a village where he
lived. There he told us to await him, and that he would return soon and
put us[26] on the way to a good place.
Along with all this misery, that road was very stony, and I was unable
to move or go a step forward, because I went shoe-less, and dying with
pain in one of my legs, which was severely wounded. My poor companions
were naked and freezing with the cold, which was very great; and not
being able to exist nor assist me, they went on in front by the road,
and I remained there supplicating God's favour.
He aided me, and I began to move along, little by little, and reached a
height, from whence I discovered some huts of straw;[27] and going
towards them by a valley, I entered a wood.[28] When I had gone a
distance of two shots of an arquebus in it, an old savage of more than
seventy years came out from behind the rocks, and two young men, with
their arms--one English, the other French--and a girl of the age of twenty
years, most beautiful[29] in the extreme, who were all going to the
shore to plunder.
When they saw me pass among the trees, they changed their course towards
me, and the Englishman came up saying, "Yield, Spanish poltroon,"[30]
and made a slash at me with a knife, desiring to kill me. I warded off
the blow with a stick which I carried in my hand; but, in the end, he
got at me, and cut the sinew of my right leg. He wanted to repeat the
blow immediately, had not the savage come up with his daughter, who may
have been this Englishman's friend,[31] and I replied he might do what
he wished to me, for fortune had subdued me, and deprived me of my arms
in the sea. They took him away from me then, and the savage began to
strip me, to the taking off of my shirt, under which I wore a gold chain
of the value of rather more than a thousand dollars.[32] When they saw
it, they rejoiced greatly, and searched the jacket,[33] thread by
thread, in which I carried forty-five crown-pieces in gold, that the
Duke had ordered to be given to me at Corunna for two months' pay;[34]
and when the Englishman saw that I carried a chain and crown-pieces, he
wanted to take me prisoner, saying that he should be offered a ransom. I
replied that I had nothing to give; that I was a very poor soldier, and
had gained that, what they saw, in the ship. The girl lamented much to
see the bad treatment I received, and asked them to leave me the
clothes, and not to injure me any more. They all returned to the hut of
the savage, and I remained among those trees, bleeding from the wound
which the Englishman had inflicted upon me. I proceeded to put on again
my jacket and sack-coat; moreover, they had taken away my shirt, and
some relics of great value which I wore in a small garment [vestment],
of the Order of the Holy Trinity, that had been given to me at Lisbon.
These the savage damsel took and hung them round her neck, making me a
sign that she wished to keep them, saying to me that she was a
Christian: which she was in like manner as Mahomet.
From her hut they sent me a boy with a poultice made of herbs, to put
upon my wound, and butter and milk and a small piece of oaten bread to
eat.
I applied the dressing and ate the food, and the boy went along the road
with me, showing me the direction I had to go, and advising me to avoid
a village which could be seen from thence, where they had killed many
Spaniards, and not one escaped that they could lay their hands upon.
He [or the person] to do me this service was born a Frenchman, who had
been a soldier at Terceira, upon whom it pressed heavily to see such
injury done me.
When the boy was about to turn back, he told me to continue travelling
_straight towards some mountains_ that appeared to be about six leagues
off, behind which there were good lands belonging to an important savage
very friendly to the King of Spain; and that he gave shelter to, and
treated well, all the Spaniards who went to him; and that he had in his
village more than eighty of those from the ships who reached there
naked.
At this news I took some courage; and with my stick in hand, I began to
walk as best I could, making for the direction of the mountains [or for
the north of the mountains], as the boy had told me.[35]
That night I reached some huts, where they did not do me harm, because
there was in them one who knew Latin; and in the necessity of the
circumstances, our Lord was pleased that we should understand one
another, talking Latin. I narrated to them my hardships.
The Latin-speaking man sheltered me in his hut that night: he dressed my
wound, gave me supper, and a place where I might sleep upon some straw.
In the middle of the night his father arrived and his brothers, loaded
with plunder and our things, and it did not displease the old man that I
had been sheltered in his house and well treated.
In the morning they gave me a horse and a boy to convey me over a mile
of bad road that there was, with mud up to the girths. Having passed it
by the distance of the shot of a cross-bow, we heard a very great noise,
and the boy said to me, by signs, "Save yourself, Spain" (for so they
call us); "many Sassana horsemen are coming this way, and they will make
bits of thee if thou doest not hide thyself: come this way quickly."
They call the English "Sassanas." He took me away to hide in some rugged
places among the rocks, where we were very well concealed. They would be
about one hundred and fifty horsemen going back to the coast to plunder
as many Spaniards as they found.
God delivered me from them; and, proceeding on our way, there fell in
with me more than forty savages on foot, and they wished to make little
pieces of me because they were all Lutherans. They did not do it, as the
boy, who came with me, told them that his master had taken me prisoner,
and he had me in custody, and had sent me on that horse to be cured.
With all this, it did not suffice to obtain permission for me to pass in
peace; for two of those robbers came up to me and gave me six blows of a
stick, which bruised my shoulders and arms, and they stripped me of
everything that I wore, so as to leave me as naked as when I was born. I
speak the truth, by the holy baptism which I received. And seeing myself
in this condition, I gave many thanks to God, beseeching of His Divine
Majesty that He would fulfil His will on me, as that was what I desired.
The boy of the savage wished to return to his hut with his horse,
weeping to see how I was left, stripped naked, so badly treated, and so
cold.
I begged of God, very earnestly, that He would transport me to where I
should die confessed and in His grace. I took some courage, being in the
greatest extremity of misfortune that man ever saw, and with some
bracken leaves and a small piece of old matting which I wrapped around
my body, I protected myself from the cold as best I could.
I continued travelling, little by little, towards the place that had
been pointed out to me, searching for the territory of the chief who had
protected the Spaniards; and, reaching the mountain range that they gave
me for direction, I met with a lake, around which there were about
thirty huts, all forsaken and unoccupied, and there I wished to pass the
night.
Not having where to go, I sought out the best hut, which appeared to me
best to take shelter in for the night; and, as I say, they were
unoccupied and without people. On entering the door, I saw it was full
of sheaves of oats, which is the ordinary bread that those savages eat,
and I gave thanks to God that I was so well off as to have a place to
sleep on them; but just then I saw three men emerge from one side, naked
as when their mothers had brought them forth, and they stood up and
stared at me. They gave me a fright, for I thought they were, without
doubt, devils, and they understood no less that I might be so, swathed
in my ferns and matting. As I entered, they did not speak to me, because
they were quaking, nor, any more, did I to them, not having observed
them, the hut being somewhat dark. Seeing myself in this great
perplexity, I said: "Oh! Mother of God, be with me, and deliver me from
all evil."
When they saw [? heard] me speaking Spanish, and calling upon the Mother
of God, they also said: "Let that great Lady be with us."
Then I felt reassured, and went up to them, asking them if they were
Spaniards.
Yes, we are, for our sins, they replied. Eleven of us were stripped
together at the shore, and in this naked state we came to seek some land
of Christians. On the way, there met us a party of enemies, who killed
eight of us, and the three who are here made our escape through a wood
so thick that they could not discover us. That evening, God provided us
with these huts, where we have rested, though there are no people in
them nor anything to eat.
I said to them, then, to be of good courage, and to commend themselves
always to our Lord; that near to where we were there was a land of
friends and Christians; and that I brought word of a village, which was
three or four leagues distant, that belonged to Señor de Ruerque
[O'Rourke], where they had sheltered many of our lost Spaniards; and,
although I was very badly treated and wounded, on the morrow we should
proceed thither.
The poor fellows rejoiced, and they asked me who I was. I told them I
was Captain Cuellar. They could not believe it, because they had felt
sure I was drowned; and they came up to me, and almost completely killed
me with embraces.
One of them was an ensign, and the other two private soldiers. And as
the narrative is ludicrous, and true, as I am a Christian, I must
proceed to the end with it, in order that you may have something to
laugh at.
I got into the straw, well buried in it, with care, not to injure nor
disturb its position; and, having arranged to rise in the morning for
our journey, we slept without supping, not having eaten anything but
blackberries and water-cresses.
And when, in God's good time, day broke, I was wide awake with the great
pain I felt in my legs, I heard talking and the noise of people; and at
this juncture there came to the door a savage, with a halberd in his
hand, and he began to look at his oats and to talk to himself.
I remained without breathing, and my companions, who had been aroused,
[were] watching the savage very attentively from under the straw, and
what he intended to do.
It was the will of God that he went out and left, with many others who
had come along with him, to reap and work close to the huts in a place
where we could not go out without being seen. We remained quiet, buried
alive, discussing what it would suit us to do, and we decided not to
disinter ourselves, nor to move from that place while those heretic[36]
savages were there, who were from the place where so much evil was done
to the poor fellows of our Spaniards whom they caught; and they would
have done the same to us if they had perceived us there, where we had no
one to protect us but God.
Thus passed the whole day; and then, when night came on, the traitors
departed to shelter themselves at their villages, while we awaited the
rising of the moon.
Then wrapped up with straw and hay, for it was extremely cold, we
sallied forth from that great danger, in which we had been, without
waiting for the day.
We went along, stumbling in the mud, and dying with hunger, thirst, and
pain, until God was pleased to bring us to a land of some safety, where
we found huts of better people, although all savages, but Christians and
charitable. One of them, seeing that I came so badly treated and
wounded, took me to his hut and dressed my wounds, he and his wife and
sons, and he did not permit me to depart till it appeared I should be
well able to reach the village I was bound for. In it I met with more
than seventy Spaniards, who all went about naked and severely
maltreated, because the chief was not there.
He had gone to defend a territory which the English were coming to take;
and although this man is a savage, he is a very good Christian and an
enemy of heretics, always carrying on war with them. He is called Señor
de Ruerque [O'Rourke].
I arrived at his house with great exertion, enveloped in straw and
swathed around the body with a piece of matting, in such a plight that
no one could see me without being moved to great compassion.
Some of the savages gave me a bad old blanket, full of vermin, with
which I covered myself, and somewhat improved matters.
Early next day, about twenty of us Spaniards collected together at the
house of this Señor de Ruerque [O'Rourke], in order that they might give
us something to eat, for the love of God; and while we were there
begging, news was told us that a Spanish ship was at the coast, that she
was very large, and came for those Spaniards who had escaped.
With this news, without waiting longer, the whole twenty of us left for
the direction where they told us the ship was, and we met with many
hindrances on the way; though, for me it was an advantage and a mercy
which God granted me that I did not arrive at the port where she was in
the same manner as the others who were with me reached it. They embarked
on board of her, as she belonged to the Armada, and had arrived there in
a great gale[37] with her main-mast and rigging much injured. Fearing
that the enemy might burn her or do her some other injury, for which
energetic preparations were being made, they set sail from thence in two
days with the crew that came in her and those they had picked up,
returning, to run aground and get wrecked, on the same coast. More than
two hundred persons were drowned, and those who reached the shore by
swimming were taken by the English and all put to death.[38] It pleased
God that I alone remained of the twenty who went in search of her, for I
did not suffer like the others. For ever blessed be His Most Holy Pity
for so great mercies as He has shown to me.