Soon After They Saw Many Canoes With Indians Coming Down The
Creek.
The Indians were armed with long bows and arrows, and spears and
swords after their manner, and being large men clothed in deer skins, they
had a very formidable appearance.
At the first discharge of their arrows,
the Indians wounded six of the Spaniards; but finding the effects of the
Spanish arms, they drew off again to their canoes, and seized the Spanish
boat. On this the Spaniards closed with them, being obliged to wade up to
their middles in the water, but succeeded in rescuing the boat and putting
the Indians to flight, Alaminos being wounded in the throat during the
fight. When the Indians retreated and the Spaniards were all ready to
embark, the centinel who gave the alarm was asked what had become of his
companion? He answered, that he had stepped aside towards the creek by
which the Indians came down, on purpose to cut down a palmito; and that
hearing him soon afterwards cry out, he had run away to give the alarm. A
party was sent in search of him, following the track of the Indians, who
found the palmito he had begun to cut down, and near it the grass was much
trodden down, which made them conclude he had been carried away alive, as
they could not find him after an hours search. That unfortunate soldier
was the only one who had escaped unwounded from Pontonchan.
The boat now returned to the ship with the water which they had procured;
and many of the people on board were so eager to drink, that one of the
soldiers leaped into the boat immediately on its getting along-side, and
drank so greedily that he swelled and died in two days after. Leaving this
place, they came in two days sail to the Martyres, where the greatest
depth of water is only two fathoms, interspersed with many rocks, on one
of which the ships touched and became very leaky. Yet it pleased God,
after so many sufferings, that they arrived at the port of Carenas, now
called the Havanna; whence Hernandez de Cordova sent an account of his
voyage to James Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, and died in ten days
after. Three of his soldiers died also at the Havanna, making fifty-six in
all lost during the expedition out of an hundred and ten men. The rest of
the soldiers dispersed themselves over the island of Cuba, and the ships
returned to the city of St Jago, by which the fame of this voyage spread
over the whole island.
[1] We shall afterwards have occasion to give an account of this and other
Spanish Expeditions of Discovery and Conquest, written by Bernal Diaz
del Castillo, who was actually engaged in all those which he
described. - E.
SECTION XII.
Farther Discoveries on the Continent by Juan Grijalva, under the orders
of Velasquez, by which a way is opened to Mexico or New Spain.
However unfortunate Cordova had been in his expedition, yet Velasquez
considered the intelligence he had transmitted concerning his discoveries
as of high importance, and he determined to pursue these discoveries on
the first opportunity, chiefly because the people among whom Hernandez had
been so roughly bandied seemed much more civilized than any Indians
hitherto met with, and consequently were likely to prove proportionally
richer. These sentiments were no sooner made public, than several of the
principal inhabitants of the island offered their assistance, so that he
was soon in a condition to send out a small squadron of three ships and a
brigantine, having 250 men on board. These were commanded by the captains
Alvaredo, Montejo, and de Avila, and under chief command of Juan Grijalva,
who was ordered by Velasquez to make what discoveries he could, but to
form no settlement. They sailed from Cuba on the 8th of May 1518; and
having visited the coast of Florida, they doubled Cape St Anthony, and
discovered the island of Cozumel, to which Grijalva gave the name of
Santa Cruz, because discovered on the day of the invention of the Holy
Cross, yet it has always retained its Indian name of Cozumel, by which it
is still known. Grijalva landed with a competent number of soldiers, yet
no person could be found; for the natives had fled on the first appearance
of the ships. While some went to look out for the inhabitants, Grijalva
caused mass to be celebrated on the shore. Two old men were found in a
field of maize, who were brought to Grijalva; and as Julian and Melchior
happened to understand their language, Grijalva made much of them, giving
them some beads and looking-glasses, and sent them away to their chief and
countrymen, in hopes of establishing an intercourse with the natives, but
they never returned. While waiting for them, there came a handsome young
woman, who told them in the language of Jamaica, that the people had all
fled into the woods for fear, but that she had come to them, being
acquainted with ships and Spaniards. Many of the people of the ships
understood her language, and were astonished how she could have come to
that island. She said that she had gone out to fish from the island of
Jamaica about two years before, in a canoe with ten men, and had been
driven by a storm and the currents to that island, where the natives had
sacrificed her husband and all the rest of her countrymen to their idols.
Grijalva, beleaving that this woman would be a faithful messenger, sent
her to persuade the natives to come out of the woods, being afraid if he
sent Julian and Melchior that they might not return. The woman came back
in two days, saying that she had done all she could to prevail on the
natives, but altogether without effect.
Finding that nothing could be accomplished at this place, Grijalva
embarked his men, taking the Jamaica woman along with him, as she begged
him not to leave her behind.
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