Inland are many deer, birds, and beasts other than those I have spoken of. Cattle[129] come as far as here. Three times I have seen them and eaten of their meat. I think they are about the size of those in Spain. They have small horns like the cows of Morocco; the hair is very long and flocky like the merino's. Some are tawny, others black. To my judgment the flesh is finer and fatter than that of this country. Of the skins of those not full grown the Indians make blankets, and of the larger they make shoes and bucklers. They come as far as the sea-coast of Florida, from a northerly direction, ranging through a tract of more than four hundred leagues; and throughout the whole region over which they run, the people who inhabit near, descend and live upon them, distributing a vast many hides into the interior country.
[Buckingham Smith introduces the following translation from the Letter (Oviedo, pp. 594-598) as throwing important light on the occurrences related in the foregoing chapter. F. W. H.]
"Thus ended the account of Figueroa, without his being able to add more to it, than that Esquivel was about there in the possession of some natives, and they might see him in a little while; but a month afterwards, it was known that he no longer lived, for having gone from the natives, they had followed after and put him to death. Figueroa tarried a few moments, long enough to relate the sad news. The Indian who brought him would not permit him to remain. Asturiano, the clergyman, and a young man being the only ones who could swim, accompanied them for the purpose of returning with fish which they were promised, as likewise that they should be brought back over that bay; but when the Indians found them at their houses, they would neither bring them nor let them return; on the contrary, they put their houses into their canoes and took the two Christians with them, saying that they would soon come back....
"The eight companions remained that day to appease their hunger, and the next morning they saw two Indians of a rancho coming over the water to place their dwellings on the hither side. The purpose was to live on blackberries that grow in some places along the coast, which they seek at a season they know full well, and although precarious, they promise a food that supports life. They called to the Indians, who came as to persons they thought lightly of, taking some part of what they possessed almost by force. The Christians besought the natives to set them over, which they did in a canoe, taking them to their houses near by, and at dark gave them a small quantity of fish. They went out the next day for more, and returned at night, giving them a part of what they had caught. The day following they moved off with the Christians and never after were the two seen whom the other Indians had taken away.
"At last the natives, weary of seeking food for their guests, turned away five, that they should go to some Indians who they said were to be found in another bay, six leagues farther on. Alonzo del Castillo went there with Pedro de Valdivieso, cousin of Andrés Dorantes, and another, Diego de Huelva, where they remained a long time; the two others went down near the coast, seeking relief, where they died, as Dorantes states, who found the bodies, one of whom, Diego Dorantes, was his cousin. The two hidalgos and the negro remaining in that rancho, sufficed for the use of the natives, to bring back-loads of wood and water as slaves. After three or four days however, these likewise were turned off, when for some time they wandered about lost, without hope of relief; and going naked among marshes, having been previously despoiled one night of their clothing, they came upon those dead.
"They continued the route until they found some Indians, with whom Andrés Dorantes remained. A cousin of his, one of the three who had gone on to the bay where they stopped, came over from the opposite shore, and told him that the swimmers who went from them had passed in that direction, having their clothes taken from them and they much bruised about the head with sticks because they would not remain; still though beaten and stripped, they had gone on for the sake of the oath they had taken, never to stop even if death stood in the path, before coming to a country of Christians. Dorantes states that he saw in the rancho where he was, the clothes belonging to the clergyman and to one of the swimmers, with a breviary or prayer book. Valdivieso returned, and a couple of days afterwards was killed, because he wished to flee, and likewise in a little time Diego de Huelva, because he forsook one lodge-house for another.
"The Christians were there made slaves, forced with more cruelty to serve than the Moor would have used. Besides going stark naked and bare-footed over the coast burning in summer like fire, their continual occupation was bringing wood and water on the back, or whatever the Indians needed, and dragging canoes over inundated grounds in hot weather.
"These natives eat nothing the year round but fish, and of that not much. They experience far less hunger however, than the inhabitants inland among whom the Spaniards afterwards lived. The food often fails, causing frequent removals, or otherwise they starve.... They have finger nails that for any ordinary purpose are knives, and are their principal arms among themselves....
"The Spaniards lived here fourteen months, from May to the May ensuing of the year 1530, and to the middle of the month of August, when Andrés Dorantes, being at a point that appeared most favorable for going, commended himself to God, and went off at mid-day.... Castillo tarried among that hard people a year and a half later, until an opportunity presented for starting; but on arriving he found only the negro; Dorantes, finding these Indians unbearably cruel, had gone back more than twenty leagues to a river near the bay of Espíritu Sancto, among those who had killed Esquivel, the solitary one that had escaped from the boats of the Governor and Alonzo Enrriques, slain, as they were told, because a woman had dreamed some absurdity. The people of this country have belief in dreams, their only superstition. On account of them they will even kill their children; and this hidalgo Dorantes states, that in the course of four years he had been a witness to the killing or burying alive of eleven or twelve young males, and rarely do they let a girl live....
"Andrés Dorantes passed ten months among this people, enduring much privation with continual labor, and in fear of being killed...."
Chapter 19
Our separation by the Indians.
When the six months were over, I had to spend with the Christians to put in execution the plan we had concerted, the Indians went after prickly pears, the place at which they grew being thirty leagues off;[130] and when we approached the point of flight, those among whom we were, quarrelled about a woman. After striking with fists, beating with sticks and bruising heads in great anger, each took his lodge and went his way, whence it became necessary that the Christians should also separate, and in no way could we come together until another year.
In this time I passed a hard life, caused as much by hunger as ill usage. Three times I was obliged to run from my masters, and each time they went in pursuit and endeavored to slay me; but God our Lord in his mercy chose to protect and preserve me; and when the season of prickly pears returned, we again came together in the same place. After we had arranged our escape, and appointed a time, that very day the Indians separated and all went back. I told my comrades I would wait for them among the prickly-pear plants until the moon should be full. This day was the first of September,[131] and the first of the moon; and I said that if in this time they did not come as we had agreed, I would leave and go alone. So we parted, each going with his Indians. I remained with mine until the thirteenth day of the moon, having determined to flee to others when it should be full.
At this time Andrés Dorantes arrived with Estevanico and informed me that they had left Castillo with other Indians near by, called Lanegados;[132] that they had encountered great obstacles and wandered about lost; that the next day the Indians, among whom we were, would move to where Castillo was, and were going to unite with those who held him and become friends, having been at war until then, and that in this way we should recover Castillo.