sailed as a boy with the old admiral, I remember he inclined this way." Suddenly the vision of Córdoba enlarged. Here might be something better, nobler, more profitable even than kidnapping the poor natives. Despatching a messenger to Velazquez, Córdoba asked, in case new discoveries were made while on the way to catch Indians, for permission to act as the governor's lieutenant in such lands. The desired authority was granted, and from the haciendas near by were brought on board sheep, pigs, and mares, so that stock-raising might begin if settlements were formed.
Sailing from the Habana, or San Cristóbal, the 8th of February, 1517, they came to Cape San Antonio, whence, on the 12th, they struck westward, and after certain days,[1] during two of which they were severely tempest-tossed, they discovered land;[2] first the point of an island, where were some fine salt-fields, and cultivated ground. The people who appeared on the shore were not naked as on the Islands, but well dressed in white and colored cotton, some with ornaments of gold, silver, and feathers. The men were
- ↑ Authorities vary, from four days given by Las Casas, and six by Oviedo, to 21 by Bernal Diaz and Herrera. The date of departure is also disputed, but the differences are unimportant. Compare Peter Martyr, dec. iv. cap. vi.; Dufey, Résumé Hist. Am., i. 93; Clavigero, Storia Mess., iii. 3; Las Casas, Hist. Ind., iv. 348-63; Cogolludo, Hist. Yucathan, 3-8; Gomara, Hist. Ind., 60-1; Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 1-2; Herrera, dec. ii. lib. ii. cap. xvii.; Solis, Hist. Mex., i. 22-4; Vida de Cortés, or De Rebus Gestis Ferdinandi Cortesii, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., i. 331-41; March y Labores, Marina Española, i. 463-8; Robertson's Hist. Am., i. 237-40; Fancourt's Hist. Yuc., 5-8.
- ↑ Though remarkably fair and judicious in the main, Mr Prescott's partiality for a certain class of his material is evident. To the copies from the Spanish archives, most of which have been since published with hundreds of others equally or more valuable, he seemed to attach an importance proportionate to their cost. Thus, throughout his entire work, these papers are paraded to the exclusion of the more reliable, but more accessible, standard authorities. In the attempt, at this point, to follow at once his document and the plainly current facts, he falls into an error of which he appears unconscious. He states, Conq. Mex., i. 222, that Córdoba 'sailed with three vessels on an expedition to one of the neighboring Bahama Islands, in quest of Indian slaves. He encountered a succession of heavy gales which drove him far out of his course.' The Bahama Islands are eastward from Habana, while Cape San Antonio is toward the west. All the authorities agree that the expedition sailed directly westward, and that the storm did not occur until after Cape San Antonio had been passed, which leaves Mr Prescott among other errors in that of driving a fleet to the westward, in a storm, when it has already sailed thither by the will of its commander, in fair weather.
