116 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 73 
made a bridge; and in the high swamp grass on the other side there was an ambuscade 
of Indians, and they shot three Christians with arrows. They finished crossing this 
swamp on the Friday following at noon and a horse was drowned there. At nightfall 
they reached Ivitachuco and found the village in flames, for the Indians had set fire 
to it. Sunday, October 5, they came to Calahuchi, and two Indians and one Indian 
woman were taken and a large amount of dried venison. There the guide whom 
they had ran away. The next day they went on, taking for a guide an old Indian who 
led them at random, and an Indian woman took them to Iviahica, and they found 
all the people gone. And the next day tw T o captains went on further and found all 
the people gone. 
Johan de Anasco started out from that village and eight leagues from it he found 
the port where Pamphilo de Narvaez had set sail in the vessels which he made. 
He recognized it by the headpieces of the horses and the place where the forge was 
set up and the mangers and the mortars that they used to grind corn and by the crosses 
cut in the trees. 
They spent the winter there, and remained until the 4th of March, 1540, in which 
time many notable things befell them with the Indians, who are the bravest of men 
and whose great courage and boldness the discerning reader may imagine from what 
follows. For example, two Indians once rushed out against eight men on horseback; 
twice they set the village on fire; and with ambuscades they repeatedly killed many 
Christians, and although the Spaniards pursued them and burned them they were 
never willing to make peace. If their hands and noses were cut off they made no 
more account of it than if each one of them had been a Mucius Scaevola of Rome. 
Not one of them, for fear of death, denied that he belonged to Apalache; and when 
they were taken and were asked from whence they were they replied proudly: "From 
whence am I? I am an Indian of Apalache." And they gave one to understand 
that they would be insulted if they were thought to be of any other tribe than the 
Apalaches. 1 
Farther on we read: 
The Province of Apalache is very fertile and abundantly provided with supplies 
with much corn, kidney beans, pumpkins, various fruits, much venison, many varie- 
ties of birds and excellent fishing near the sea; and it is a pleasant country, though 
there are swamps, but these have a hard sandy bottom. 2 
The account in Elvas is as follows: 
The next day, the first of October, the Governor took his departure in the morning, 
and ordered a bridge to be made over a river, which he had to cross. The depth 
there, for a stone's throw, was over the head, and afterward the water came to the 
waist, for the distance of a crossbow-shot, where was a growth of tall and dense forest, 
into which the Indians came, to ascertain if they could assail the men at work and 
prevent a passage; but they were dispersed by the arrival of crossbow-men, and some 
timbers being thrown in, the men gained the opposite side and secured the way. 
On the fourth day of the week, Wednesday of St. Francis, the Governor crossed over 
and reached Uitachuco, a town subject to Apalache, where he slept. He found it 
burning, the Indians having set it on fire. 
Thenceforward the country was well inhabited, producing much corn, the way 
leading by many habitations like villages. Sunday, the twenty-fifth of October, 
he arrived at the town of Uzela, and on Monday at Anhayca Apalache, where the 
lord of all that country and Province resided. The Camp-master, whose duty it is to 
divide and lodge the men, quartered them about the town, at the distance of half a 
1 Bourne, Narr. of De Soto, u, pp. 78-80. 2 Ibid., p. 82. 
