1527.] RAMBLES OF CABEZA-VACA. 57 



aid of his friend Francisco Pizarro, who was then in great difficulties, 

 from an extensive insurrection of the natives.* 



Cortes, nevertheless, still claimed the right, in virtue of his 

 capitulation with the sovereign, and as admiral of the South Sea, 

 to make expeditions on that ocean for his own benefit ; and he 

 resolved to prosecute the discovery of California, by which he 

 still expected to retrieve his fortunes, so soon as he could obtain the 

 requisite funds. The advancement of this claim, however, brought 

 him into collision with the new viceroy, who was an enlightened 

 and determined man, and who had likewise become interested in the 

 exploration of the regions north-west of Mexico, by the accounts of 

 some persons recently arrived from that quarter ; and a violent con- 

 troversy ensued between the two chiefs, which lasted until the 

 conqueror quitted Mexico. 



The persons from whom the viceroy Mendoza received this 

 information respecting the territories north-west of Mexico, were 

 Alvaro Nunez de Cabeza-Vaca, two other Spaniards, and a negro or 

 Moor. They had landed, in 1527, near Tampa Bay, in the 

 peninsula of Florida, among the adventurers who invaded that 

 country under Panfilo Narvaez, in search of mines and plunder ; 

 and, after the destruction of their comrades by shipwreck, starvation, 

 and the arrows of the Indians, they had wandered for nine years 

 through forests and deserts, until they reached Culiacan, whence 

 they were sent on to Mexico. Of their route, it is impossible to 

 form any exact idea from the narrative published by Cabeza-Vaca : 

 he had seen no signs of wealth or civilization in the regions which 

 he had traversed ; but he had, in many places, received from the 

 natives accounts of rich and populous countries, inhabited by 

 civilized people, situated farther north-west ; and the viceroy, after 

 hearing these accounts, thought proper to endeavor to ascertain the 



* A long account of the adventures of Cortes, in his Californian expedition, may 

 be found in Herrera, Decade viii. book viii. chap. ix. and x. The descriptions of 

 the localities given by Herrera, and other historians, are, however, so vao-ue, that it is 

 impossible to trace the movements of the Spaniards with exactness ; and the events 

 related are unimportant, being merely details of disasters, such as might have 

 occurred to ordinary men, engaged in ordinary enterprises. Those who take interest 

 in everything connected with Cortes, — and the number of such must doubtless be 

 greatly increased, since the publication of Mr. Prescott's History of the Conquest of 

 Mexico, — may obtain explanations, as to the events of this expedition, from the 

 Introduction to the Journal of Galiano and Valdes, and from the first volume of 

 Burney's History of Voyages in the Pacific ; but they should avoid the account 

 given by Fleuneu, in his Introduction to the Journal of Marchand's Voyage, which 

 only renders confusion worse confounded. 



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