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wanting to block our way so that it would be of no advantage to be out of the water and so that we would be forced to do battle with them. They would go into the lake and from there wound our men and horses. Seeing this, the Governor ordered the…

captured and other Indians that we had brought with us (who were their neighbors and enemies) about the country, settlements, quality of people, food and all the other things we wished to know. Each one answered that the largest village in the…

deep and partly because there are so many fallen trees in them. They have sandy bottoms, and the ones we found in Apalachee are much larger than any we had encountered on the way. There are many corn fields in this province, and the houses are as…

When we were within sight of Apalachee, the Governor ordered me to enter the village with nine men on horseback and fifty foot soldiers, which the Inspector and I did. Once in it, we found only women and children, as all the men were out of the…

wait, withdrawing instead and following us. The governor left some men on horseback to ambush them along their way. As the Indians went by, our men attacked them and captured three or four of them, which we took on as guides from that point…

our search for the province the Indians called Apalachee, taking as guides the Indians we had captured. We walked until the seventeenth of June without seeing any Indians bold enough to wait for us. Then a man appeared before us carrying on his back…

Lord deeply for having come to our aid when we were in such great need, for besides being very tired we were weakened by hunger. On the third day after our arrival, the Purser, the Inspector, the Commissary and I joined in asking the Governor to send…

The 1542 edition title page is reproduced in The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca. Translated by Fanny Bandelier and edited with an introduction by Ad. F. Bandelier. Allerton Book Co, NY. MCMXXII (copyright 1904 by Williams-Barker Co.)

The 1555 edition of Cabeza de Vaca's La relación y comentarios measures 5-3/8 inches across and 7-3/8 inches tall. The book contains 144 numbered leaves and was rebound with a leather cover sometime in the late 1700s or early 1800s.

In 1625 Englishman Samuel Purchas published an anthology of exploration literature titled Purchas: His Pilgrimage. Included in the pages was the first-ever English translation of Cabeza de Vaca's account:

"A Relation of Alvaro Nunez Called Capo di…