[333] Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. Diaz. cap. lx, clxii.—Vide The memoirs of the conquistador. Lockhart. chap. lx, clxii.
[334] Tratado, que compõs e nobre & notauel capitão Antonio Galuão.
[335] In June, 1523, Francisco de Garay sailed with a fleet and a large number of troops from Jamaica to take possession of the province of Panuco, of which he had been appointed governor. He failed to accomplish his purpose, and died in the city of Mexico, at the end of December, 1523. Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. cap. cxxxiii, clxii. Vide The memoirs of the conquistador. Lockhart. chap. cxxxiii, clxii.
[336] Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. iii. pp. 64-69; 147-153.
[337] The situation of certain places along the coast of the present states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, is thus described by Gomara: “From Santa Elena to Rio Seco, in 31°, are other forty leagues, and thence to La Cruz are twenty, and thence to Cañaveral, forty; and from Punta Cañaveral, in 28°, are other forty to Punta de la Florida (the peninsula of Florida).... This is in 25°, which is twenty leagues in length, and from it are a hundred or more leagues to Ancon bajo, which is fifty leagues from Rio Seco, from east to west, across Florida. From Ancon bajo they estimate it to be a hundred leagues to Rio de Nieves, and thence to that of Flores more than twenty, from which river it is seventy leagues to the Bay of the Holy Spirit (Baya del Espiritu Sancto), called by another name, La Culata (the breech of a gun), which river flows out into the ocean thirty leagues, and is in 29°, and thence it is more than seventy to Rio de Pescadores. From Rio de Pescadores, in 28° 30´, are a hundred leagues to Rio de las Palmas, near which crosses the tropic of Cancer; thence to Rio Panuco are more than thirty leagues; and thence to Villa Rica or Vera Cruz, seventy leagues.”—Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias. Gomara. cap. xii.
[338] Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, a native of Toledo, Spain, was one of the licentiates appointed by King Ferdinand to act as auditors of the royal court of appeal (audiencia), afterward sitting in San Domingo. In March, 1520, Ayllon went with Pamfilo de Narvaez to New Spain, who was sent there by Diego Velasquez to administer the affairs of that country. When Ayllon landed in Mexico he became so inimical to the purposes of Velasquez that Narvaez put him under arrest and sent him back to Cuba, where he arrived in August, 1520.
[339] “So designated,” says Herrera, “because Jordan was the name of one of the captains or masters of the ships.”
Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias. Gomara. cap. vii.
[340] Ayllon, in 1523, was made governor (adelantado) of the provinces and islands of Suache, Chicora, Xapira, Tatancal, Anicatiye, Cocayo, Guacaya, Xoxi, Sona, Pasqui, Arambe, Xamunambe, Huag, Tanzaca, Yenyohol, Paor, Yamiscaron, Carixagusignanin and Anoxa, that were said to lie between the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh parallels of north latitude. In 1524 it is said that he sent two ships to some of these places. In July, 1526, he sailed himself from Española, with six vessels, having on board five hundred men and ninety horses. Diego Miruelo, the pilot of this fleet, it is said, failed to find the coast of Chicora, which he had visited in 1520. The natives, where the Spaniards landed, manifested toward them the greatest friendliness, and so deceived Ayllon with their unbounded hospitality that he sent two hundred of his men into the interior on an exploring expedition. While they were sleeping the savages fell upon them and murdered them to a man. They then attacked those near the ships, who, being outnumbered, fled before their assailants. One hundred and fifty escaped, and in a suffering condition returned to San Domingo. It is further related that Ayllon died on the eighteenth of October, 1526.—Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos. Navarrete. tom. iii. pp. 69-74; 153-160.
[341] De Orbe Novo decades. dec. ii. cap. vii.