The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and His Companions From Florida to the Pacific, 1528-1536 Page: 31 of 253

ALVAR NUNEZ CABEZA DE VACA

that we crossed to the coast of Florida,
sighting land on Tuesday, the I2th day of
the month of April.a We coasted the way
of Florida, and on Holy Thursday cast an-
chor at the mouth of a bay, at the head of
which we saw certain houses and habita-
tions of Indians.
N that same day the clerk, Alonso
Enriquez, left and went to an island
in the bay and called the Indians,
who came and were with him a good while,
and by way of exchange they gave him fish
and some venison. The day following
(which was Good Friday) the Governor
disembarked, with as many men as his little
boats would hold, and as we arrived at the
huts or houses of the Indians we had seen,
We found them abandoned and deserted, the
'Same date in Oviedo (Historia general y nat-
ural de Indias, Vol. III, p. 582. But the details
of the stay on the coast and in the ports of Cuba
are only found in Cabeza de Vaca's book, and in
his Relacion (Documentos de Indias, Vol. XIV,
P. 289), where he mentions two tempests: the
great hurricane and one that nearly wrecked them
near Cape Corrientes. That Relacion seems like
an abridgement of the Naufragios.
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