by night, and rested without the towns three or four hours. In ten days he came to the Port de Spirito Santo. He carried with him twenty Indian women, which he took in Ytara, and Potano, near unto Cale, and sent them to Donna Isabella in the two caravels, which he sent from the Port de Spirito Santo to Cuba. And he carried all the footmen in the brigantines, and coasting along the shore came to Apalache. And Calderan, with the horsemen, and some crossbow-men on foot, went by land; and in some places the Indians set upon him, and wounded some of his men. As soon as he came to Apalache, presently the Governor sent sawed planks and spikes to the sea-side, wherewith was made a piragua or bark, wherein were embarked thirty men well armed, which went out of the bay to the sea, looking for the brigantines. Sometimes they fought with the Indians, which passed along the harbor in their canoes. Upon Saturday, the 29th of November, there came an Indian through the watch undiscovered, and sat the town on fire, and with the great wind that blew two parts of it were consumed in a short time. On Sunday the 28th of December, came John Danusco with the brigantines. The Governor sent Francisco Maldonado, a captain of footmen, with fifty men to discover the coast westward, and to seek some port, because he had determined to go by land, and discover that part. That day there went out eight horsemen by commandment of the Governor into the field, two leagues about the town, to seek Indians; for they were now so emboldened, that within two crossbow shot of the camp, they came and slew men. They found two men and a woman gathering French beans; the men, though they might have fled, yet because they would not leave the woman, which was one of their wives, they resolved to die fighting; and before they were slain, they wounded three horses, whereof one died within a few days after. Calderan going with his men by the sea-coast, from a wood that was near the place, the Indians set upon him, and made him forsake his way, and many of them that went with him forsook some necessary victuals, which they carried with them. Three or four days after the limited time given by the Governor to Maldonado for his going and coming, being already determined and resolved, if within eight days he did not come, to tarry no longer for him, he came, and brought an Indian from a province which was called Ochus, sixty leagues westward from Apalache; where he had found a port of good depth, and defence against weather. And because the Governor hoped to find a good country forward, he was very well contented. And he sent Maldonado for victuals to Havana, with order that he should tarry for him at the port of Ochus, which he had discovered, for he would go seek it by land; and if he should chance to stay, and not come thither that summer, that then he should return to Havana, and should come again the next summer after, and tarry for him at that port; for he said he would do none other thing but go to seek Ochus. Francisco Maldonado departed, and in his place for captain of the footmen remained John de Guzman. Of those Indians which were taken in Napetuca, the Treasurer John Gaytan had a young man, which said that he was not of that country, but of another far off toward the sun rising, and that it was long since he had traveled to see countries; and that his country was called Yupaha, and that a woman did govern it; and that the town where she was resident was of a wonderful bigness, and that many lords round about were tributaries to her; and some gave her clothes, and others gold in abundance; and he told how it was taken out of the mines, and was molten and refined, as if he had seen it done, or the devil had taught it him. So that all those which knew anything concerning the same, said that it was impossible to give so good a relation, without having seen it; and all of them, as if they had seen it, by the signs that he gave, believed all that he said to be true.

On Wednesday, the third of March, of the year 1540, the Governor departed from Anaica Apalache to seek Yupaha. He commanded his men to go provided with maize for sixty leagues of desert. The horsemen carried their maize on their horses, and the footmen at their sides; because the Indians that were for service, with their miserable life that they led that winter, being naked and in chains, died for the most part. Within four days' journey they came to a great river; and they made a piragua or ferry boat, and because of the great current, they made a cable with chains, which they fastened on both sides of the river; and the ferry boat went along by it, and the horses swam over, being drawn with capstans. Having passed the river in a day and a half, they came to a town called Capachiqui. Upon Friday the 11th of March, they found Indians in arms. The next day five Christians went to seek mortars, which the Indians have to beat their maize, and they went to certain houses on the back side of the camp environed with a wood. And within the wood were many Indians which came to spy us; of the which came other five and set upon us. One of the Christians came running away, giving an alarm unto the camp. Those which were most ready answered the alarm. They found one Christian dead, and three sore wounded. The Indians fled unto a lake adjoining near a very thick wood, where the horses could not enter. The Governor departed from Capachiqui and passed through a desert. On Wednesday, the twenty-first of the month, he came to a town called Toalli; and from thence forward there was a difference in the houses. For those which were behind us were thatched with straw, and those of Toalli were covered with reeds, in manner of tiles. These houses are very cleanly. Some of them had walls daubed with clay, which showed like a mud-wall. In all the cold country the Indians have every one a house for the winter daubed with clay within and without, and the door is very little; they shut it by night, and make fire within; so that they are in it as warm as in a stove, and so it continueth all night that they need not clothes; and besides these they have others for summer; and their kitchens near them, where they make fire and bake their bread; and they have barbacoas wherein they keep their maize; which is a house set up in the air upon four stakes, boarded about like a chamber, and the floor of it is of cane hurdles. The difference which lords or principal men's houses have from the rest, besides they be greater, is, that they have great galleries in their fronts, and under them seats made of canes in manner of benches; and round about them they have many lofts, wherein they lay up that which the Indians do give them for tribute, which is maize, deers' skins, and mantles of the country, which are like blankets; they make them of the inner rind of the barks of trees, and some of a kind of grass like unto nettles, which being beaten, is like unto flax. The women cover themselves with these mantles; they put one about them from the waist downward, and another over their shoulder, with their right arm out, like unto the Egyptians. The men wear but one mantle upon their shoulders after the same manner; and have their secrets hid with a deer's skin, made like a linen breech, which was wont to be used in Spain. The skins are well curried, and they give them what color they list, so perfect, that if it be red, it seemeth a very fine cloth in grain, and the black is most fine, and of the same leather they make shoes; and they dye their mantles in the same colors. The Governor departed from Toalli the 24th of March; he came on Thursday at evening to a small river, where a bridge was made whereon the people passed, and Benit Fernandez, a Portuguese, fell off from it, and was drowned. As soon as the Governor had passed the river, a little distance thence he