Map of the New World in the Latin work, “Legatio Babylonica, Oceani Decas,” by Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, printed in Seville in 1511. (Size of the original, 7½ × 11 inches.)
When the Spaniards were exploring the West India archipelago a report became current that on one of the more northward islands there was a fountain, the water of which possessed extraordinary virtues. Peter Martyr heard the rumor, and wrote, in 1511, to the bishop of Rome, saying: “There is an island about three hundred and twenty-five leagues from Española, as they say who have searched for it, named Boiuca or Agnaneo, on which is a never-failing spring of running water of such marvelous efficacy that when the water is drunk, perhaps, with some attention to diet, it makes old people young again. And here I must beg your holiness not to think that this is said jestingly or thoughtlessly, for they have reported it everywhere as a fact, so that not only all the common people but also the educated and the wealthy believe it to be true.”[299]
The island of Boiuca appears to be partly outlined on the small map in Peter Martyr’s “Legatio Babylonica,” printed at Seville in 1511. It is designated on the latter as a part of the island of Beimeni,—“Isla de beimeni parte.”[300]
Among those who gave credence to the fiction of the marvellous virtues of the spring of Boiuca was Juan Ponce de Leon, a Spanish cavalier, who had attained considerable military fame in the West Indies.[301] He had sailed from Spain in 1493 to Española in one of the ships of Columbus’s second expedition. In 1509 he took part in the subjugation of the Island of Borriquen, afterward called Porto Rico, of which he was made governor. Beguiling himself with the hope that he could renew the vigor of his youth by bathing in the stream of life-giving water, and at the same time add honor to his name by becoming the discoverer of the island on which the fountain was said to be, Juan Ponce fitted out three vessels and sailed from the port of St. German, Porto Rico, on Thursday, the third of March, 1512, to search for the island Boiuca, which some called Bimini. “It is certain,” says Herrera, the Spanish historian, “that Juan Ponce de Leon besides intending to make new discoveries, as all the Spaniards at that time aspired to do, was also intent on finding the fountain of Bimini and a river in Florida; the Indians of Cuba and Española affirming that old people bathing themselves in them became young again, and it was a fact that many Indians of Cuba, firmly believing that there was such a stream, had found that island not long before the Spaniards, and had passed over to Florida in search of the river, and there built a town, where their descendants reside to this day. This report so affected all the princes and caciques in those parts that it was a hobby to find a river which wrought such a wonderful change as made old people young, so that there was not a river or a brook, scarcely a lake or a puddle, in all Florida, in which they did not bathe themselves.”[302]
The explorations and discoveries of Juan Ponce are thus described by Herrera: “On Sunday, the twenty-seventh of March, the day of the Feast of the Resurrection, commonly called the Feast of Flowers, (que era Dia de Pascua de Resurreccion, que comunmente dicen de Flores,) they saw an island and passed by it. On Monday, the twenty-eighth, they steered in the same direction, fifteen leagues, until Wednesday, when the weather became foul. They then stood west-northwest until the second of April. The water grew shallower until they came into nine fathoms, a league from the land, which was in thirty degrees and eight minutes. Thinking this land was an island they called it La Florida, because it had a very pretty landscape of many green groves, and it was level and regular, and because they discovered it at the time of the Floral Feast (Pascua Florida).[303] Juan Ponce wished the name to conform to these two facts. He went on land to learn the language and to take possession.
“On Friday, the eighth, they sailed again the same way, and on Saturday, south by east, until the twentieth, when they saw some Indian huts from the place where they had cast anchor. The next day the three ships sailed along the coast and entered a current which was so swift that it drove them back, although they had the wind strong.[304] The two ships, near the land, dropped their anchors, but the force of the stream was so great that it strained the cables. The third vessel, a brigantine, being farther out, either found no bottom or was not sensible of the current, which carried her so far from the shore that they lost sight of her, although the day was bright and the weather fine.
“Juan Ponce being called by the Indians went ashore and the latter at once undertook to possess themselves of the boat, the oars, and the arms. This was tolerated till one of the Indians stunning a sailor with a stroke of a cudgel on the head, when the Spaniards were compelled to fight. They had two of their men wounded with darts and arrows pointed with sharp bones, and the Indians received little injury. Night parting them, Juan Ponce, with considerable difficulty, got his men together and sailed thence to a river, where they wooded and watered, and waited for the brigantine. Sixty Indians came to attack them, one of whom was taken to give information and to learn the Spanish language. The river they called Rio de la Cruz, (River of the Cross), planting there a stone cross, bearing an inscription.”[305]
On the twenty-third of September, after having coasted in different directions along the Flowery Land, Juan Ponce determined to return to Porto Rico. Before he set sail, he sent Juan Perez de Ortubia to make a further search for the rejuvenating fountains on the island of Bimini. Not long after Juan Ponce’s return to Porto Rico, Ortubia arrived there and reported that he had found the island, but not the wonderful spring.[306]