winship] SURVIVORS OF NARVAEz' EXPEDITION 349 



sent him back to Spain. The complaints against him were investi- 

 gated by the Council for the Indies, but the judgment, if any was given, 

 has never been published. He certainly was not punished, and soon 

 settled down in Seville, where he was still living, apparently, twenty 

 years later. 1 



While Doxantes was stopping at Vera Cruz during the winter of 

 1536-37, he received a letter from Mendoza, asking him to return to the 

 City of Mexico. After several interviews, the viceroy induced Doran- 

 tes to remain in New Spain, agreeing to provide him with a party of 

 horsemen and friars, in order to explore more thoroughly the country 

 through which he had wandered. Mendoza explains the details of his 

 plans in the letter written in December, 1537, and declares that he 

 expected many advantages would be derived from this expedition which 

 would redound to the glory of God and to the profit of His Majesty the 

 King. The viceroy was prepared to expend a large sum — 3,500 or 4,000 

 pesos — to insure a successful undertaking, but he promised to raise the 

 whole amount, without taking a single maravedi from the royal treas- 

 ury, by means of a more careful collection of dues, and especially by 

 enforcing the payment of overdue sums, the collection of which hitherto 

 had been considered impossible. This reform in the collection of rents 

 and other royal exactions and the careful attention to all the details of 

 the fiscal administration were among the most valuable of the many 

 services rendered by Mendoza as viceroy. The expedition under Do- 

 rantes never started, though why nothing came of all the preparations, 

 wrote Mendoza in his next letter to the King, " I never could find out." 2 



The three Spaniards wrote several narratives of their experiences on 

 the expedition of jSTarvaez, and of their adventurous journey from the 

 gulf coast of Texas to the Pacific coast of Mexico/ 1 These travelers, 

 who had lived a savage life for so long that they could wear no clothes, 

 and were unable to sleep except upon the bare ground, had a strange 

 tale to tell. The story of their eight years of wandering must have 

 been often repeated — of their slavery, their buffalo-hunting expedi- 

 tions, of the escape from their Indian masters, and their career as 

 traders and as medicine men. These were wonderful and strange expe- 



1 Besides tin' general historians, wo have Cabeza de Vaea's own account of Lis career in Paraguay 

 in liis Comentarios, reprinted in Vedia, Historiadores Primitivos, vol. i. Teruaux translated this 

 narrative into Fundi for his Voyages, part vi. 



2 The Spanish text of this letter has not been seen since Ratuusio used it in making the translation 

 for his Viaggi, vol. iii, fol. 355. eil. 1556. There is no dato to the letter as Rauiusio gives it. Ternaux- 

 Compans translated it from Ramnsio for his Cibola volume {Voyages, vol. ix, p. 287). It is usually cited 

 from Ternaux's title as the " Premiere lettrede Mendoza." I quote from the French text the portion of 

 the letter which explains my narrative: ". . . Andres Dorantes, un de cenx qni nrent partio de 1'ar. 

 nee de Pamphilo Narvaez, vint pres de inui. J'eus de frequents entretiens avec lui; je pensaiqu'il 

 pouvait rendre un grand service a votre ma.jeste ; si.je l'expeiliais avec quarante on cinq nan te chevauxet 

 tons li-s objets necessaires pour decouvrir ce pays. Je depensai beaucoup d'argent pour l'expedition, 

 maisje no sais pas comment il se fit quel'affairen'eut pas de suite. De tousles pre pa rat its quej'avais 

 faits. il ne me resta qu'uu negre qui est venii avec Dorantes, quelques esclaves que j'avais achetes, 

 et des Indiens, naturels de ce pays, quej'avais fait rassembler." 



3 Two of these are extant — the Relacion of Cabeza de Vaca and Oviedo's version of an account signed 

 by the three Spaniards and sent to the Real Audieneia at Santo Domingo, in his Historia General de 

 las Indias, lib. xxxv, vol. iii, p. 582, ed. 1853. 



