be greatly shortened.[1] While hopeful that it would be found, he suggested that the trade might in any case be secured by this western route, if New Spain were made the entrepôt, goods being readily conveyed overland by the aid of the natives.[2] The departure of Cortés for Honduras, in pursuit both of Olid and the strait, delayed the proposed expeditions by sea, although the smallest vessel was sent by one of the officials on a short vain search for certain islands which aboriginal tradition placed to the south.[3] It was but the delay of bitter disappointment.
On the disbandment of the first colonists in Michoacan, those destined for Zacatula set forth in that direction under Álvarez Chico,[4] to the number of a hundred foot and forty horse, and a force of Mexican and Tarascan auxiliaries. On the way they received confirmatory accounts of the wealth of Colima, a province extending along the South Sea to the north of Zacatula, and of which glowing rumors had reached them at Tzintzuntzan. They were in search of treasures, not of garrison life at Zacatula, and so without permission they turned aside to enter the coveted province.[5] A dispute arising, a portion of the forces
- ↑ The interesting speculations concerning the strait, its position and value, and the expeditions to which the search gave rise, are fully treated in Hist. North Mex. States, See also Hist. Northwest Coast, this series.
- ↑ Cortés, Cartas, 315. The means and desirability are more fully entered into by Albornoz, Carta, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xiii. 62-3, and Oviedo, iii. 466. The route would present less difficulties than that used by the Venetians.
- ↑ Albornoz, ubi sup., intimates that had he been given the power to send the vessels forth, the route to the Spice Islands, and perhaps richer lands, would by this time have been discovered. Besides the brigantine, two larger vessels lay prepared before the close of 1525.
- ↑ man who figured prominently on the first arrival of the Spaniards at Villa Rica. See vol i. chap. ix. So Bernal Diaz calls him in one place, while in another he applies the name Juan Velazquez Chico. Hist. Verdad., 159-60, 166-7, which Panes transforms into el Chico. Monumentos Domm. Esp., MS., 59. Beaumont adopts the Velazquez form. Crón. Mich., iii. 502; and Gil, in Soc. Mex. Geog. Boletin, viii. 475-6, attempts to show that no Álvarez Chico exists, though Mota Padilla adopts the name. Hist. N. Gal., 69. See also Hernandez, in Soc. Mex. Geog. Boletin, 2da ép. ii. 478; iii. 187.
- ↑ Mota Padilla assumes that Álvarez was specially commissioned by Cortés to undertake the conquest. Several follow him, though they place the date earlier than his 1526. But Cortés clearly indicates the version of my text,
