The documents[953] which Mr. Smith adds to this new edition convey but little information beyond what can be gathered from Cabeza de Vaca himself. He adds, however, engravings of Father Juan Xuarez and Brother Juan Palos, after portraits preserved in Mexico of the twelve Franciscans who were first sent to that country.[954]
Some additional facts respecting this expedition are derived at second hand from a letter which Cabeza de Vaca and Dorantes wrote after their arrival in Mexico to the Andiencia of Hispaniola, which is not now known, but of which the substance is professedly given by Oviedo.[955]
The Bahia de la Cruz of Narvaez’ landing, made identical with Apalache Bay by Cabot, is likely to have been by him correctly identified, as the point could be fixed by the pilots who returned with the ships to Cuba, and would naturally be recorded on the charts.[956] Smith[957] believed it to be Tampa Bay. The Relacion describes the bay as one whose head could be seen from the mouth; though its author seems in another place to make it seven or eight leagues deep.[958] Narvaez and his party evidently thought they were nearer Panuco, and had no idea they were so near Havana. Had they been at Tampa Bay, or on a coast running north and south, they can scarcely be supposed to have been so egregiously mistaken.[959] If Tampa was his landing place, it is necessary to consider the bay where he subsequently built his boats as Apalache Bay.[960] Charlevoix[961] identifies it with Apalache Bay, and Siguenza y Gongora finds it in Pensacola.[962]
Of the expedition of Soto we have good and on the whole satisfactory records. The Concession made by the Spanish King of the government of Cuba and of the conquest of Florida is preserved to us.[963] There are three contemporary narratives of the progress of the march. The first and best was printed in 1557 at Evora as the Relaçam verdadeira dos trabalhos [=q] ho gouernador dō Fernādo de Souto e certos fidalgos portugueses passarom no descobrimēto da provincia da Frlorida. Agora nouamente feita per hū fidalgo Deluas.[964] It is usually cited in English as the “Narrative of the Gentleman of Elvas,” since Hakluyt first translated it, and reprinted it in 1609 at London as Virginia richly valued by the Description of the Mainland of Florida, her next Neighbor.[965] It appeared again in 1611 as The worthye and famous Historie of the Travailles, Discovery, and Conquest of Terra Florida, and was included in the supplement to the 1809 edition of the Collection of Hakluyt. It was also reprinted from the 1611 edition in 1851 by the Hakluyt Society as Discovery and Conquest of Florida,[966] edited by William B. Rye, and is included in Force’s Tracts (vol. iv.) and in French’s Historical Collections of Louisiana (vol. ii. pp. 111-220). It is abridged by Purchas in his Pilgrimes.[967]
YO EL REY.
[The sign-manual of Charles V. to the Asiento y Capitulacion granted to De Soto, 1537, as given by B. Smith in his Coleccion, p. 146.—Ed.]
Another and briefer original Spanish account is the Relacion del suceso de its jornada que hizo Hernando de Soto of Luys Hernandez de Biedma, which long remained in manuscript in the Archivo General de Indias at Seville,[968] and was first published in a French version by Ternaux in 1841;[969] and from this William B. Rye translated it for the Hakluyt Society.[970] Finally, the original Spanish text, “Relación de la Isla de la Florida,” was published by Buckingham Smith in 1857 in his Coleccion de varios documentos para la historia de la Florida.[971]
In 1866 Mr. Smith published translations of the narratives of the Gentleman of Elvas and of Biedma, in the fifth volume (125 copies) of the Bradford Club Series under the title of Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto in the Conquest of Florida, as told by a Knight of Elvas, and in a Relation [presented 1544] by Luys Hernandez de Biedma.