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A seventeenth-century coat of arms of the House of Cabeza de Vaca. By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Coat of Arms of Cabeza de Vaca from the Archivo de Indias, Sevilla, Spain. Reprinted in The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca by Morris Bishop. New York: The Century Co., 1933

CHAPTER ONE
Which Tells When the Fleet Sailed, and of the Officers and People Who Went with It

On the seventeenth day of the month of June of 1527, Governor Pánfilo de Narváez departed from the port of San Lúcar de Barrameda by authority and…

But having gone half the distance and having reached a port called Cape Santa Cruz, it seemed to him that the fleet should wait there and send a ship to bring the provisions. For this purpose he sent a certain Captain Pantoja there with his ship…

to save the people and the horses when the south wind blew, and to beach the ships if they found themselves in danger, for winds from that direction wreck many vessels. Then I left. I wanted some people to accompany me, but they did not wish to…

in some trees. Ten leagues from there we found the bodies of two persons from my ship, and certain box covers, and the bodies were so disfigured from having struck the rocks that they could not be recognized. A cloak and a quilt torn to shreds were…

along with Álvaro de la Cerda as captain, with forty men and twelve horses. Two days after the Governor's arrival we set sail with four hundred men and eighty horses in four ships and one brigantine. The pilot whom we had just engaged took the…

in their canoes. One of those buhios was very large, probably capable of holding more than three hundred people; the others were smaller. There we found a litle golden bell among some nets.

The following day the Governor raised Your Majesty's…