54 VOYAGES OF MENDOZA, GRIJALVA, AND BECERRA. [1532. 



communicate with the natives, whom he was to conciliate by every 

 means in his power. Should he find a country which seemed to be 

 rich, or inhabited by civilized persons, he was immediately to return, 

 or to send back one of his vessels, with the news.* Hurtado de 

 Mendoza accordingly proceeded slowly along the shore of the 

 continent, as far north-west as the 27th degree of latitude, where, 

 finding his crew mutinous, he sent back one of his vessels, with 

 the greater part of his men, and continued the voyage, with a small 

 crew, in the other. The vessel sent back reached Culiacan River 

 in great distress, and was there deserted by nearly all her men. Her 

 commander then endeavored, with the remainder of his crew, to 

 carry her to Acapulco : but she was stranded at the mouth of the 

 River of Vanderas, near the point now called Cape Corrientes, and 

 all on board, with the exception of three, were put to death by the 

 natives of the country, after which the vessel was seized and plun- 

 dered by Nuno de Guzman. As to the vessel in which Mendoza 

 continued his voyage, a vague account was received, that she had 

 been thrown on the coast far north, and that all her crew had 

 perished. 



Cortes did not receive the news of the loss of the vessel which 

 had been sent back by Hurtado de Mendoza until the middle 

 of the following year; and he then immediately despatched two 

 ships from Tehuantepec, in search of the other vessel, under the 

 command, respectively, of Hernando Grijalva and Diego Becerra. 

 These ships left the port together, on the 30th of September, 

 1533, but were soon after separated. Grijalva, going far out, 

 discovered a group of islands situated about fifty leagues from 

 the coast, named by him Islands of St. Thomas, (the same now 

 called the Revillagigedo Islands,) where he remained until the 

 following spring, and then returned to Acapulco, without having 

 seen any new part of the continent. Becerra, with the other ship, 

 took his course north-westward along the shore of Xalisco, near 

 which his crew mutinied, and he was murdered by the pilot, 

 Fortuno Ximenes. The mutineers, under the command of the 

 pilot, then steered directly west from the main-land, and soon 

 reached a coast not before known, on which they landed, after 

 anchoring their ship in a small bay, near the 23d degree of latitude. 

 There, more than twenty of their number, including Ximenes, were 



* Herrera, Decade v. book vii. — Manuscript letters and memorials from Cortes to 

 the emperor, in 1539 and 1540; and from Nuno-de Guzman, in 1535 and 1540. 



