where the Comptroller tarried with the men and ships. We related to him and the pilots what we had seen, and the information the natives had given.

CLUES TO NARVAEZ' LANDING

1. A strong south wind blew Narvaez' fleet from Havana to Florida.
2. The ships anchored "near the shore in the mouth of a bay" with an Indian town at the head.
3. The Comptroller landed on an island in the bay and bartered with some Indians.
4. A scouting party took its way "towards the north" for most of a day, arriving at a "very large bay which appeared to stretch far inland."
5. Keeping along the shore of the bay, another party traveled four leagues to a maize field and town "at the head of the bay." They proceeded another 10 or 12 leagues to a second town.

TWO HARBORS

In this narrative we encounter the kind of geographical description that has confused historians for more than four centuries.

By a coincidence of nature, the west coast of Florida has two great harbors of similar topography. Charlotte Harbor and Tampa Bay each have two northern arms forming a cape between, barrier islands at a southern entrance, a large peninsula between harbor and gulf, and sizeable rivers at the three corners. The peninsulas each have small bays facing the Gulf.

Early cartographers confused the two ports, and so did explorers who had to rely on verbal descriptions of landmarks.

Most scholars place Narvaez' landing at John's Pass near St. Petersburg and Clearwater. A northward hike to Old Tampa Bay would parallel the present Cross Bayou Canal.

Other authorities -- including the Florida Transportation Department with its Bicentennial map -- place the landing at Gasparilla Pass near Placida. From this location, Narvaez' excursion northward would follow county road 771 and bring him to the Myakka River estuary.

Deductive reasoning favors Old Tampa Bay. It is larger than the Myakka estuary and more easily accommodates the 4-league trip along its shore to the "head of the bay." Old Tampa Bay is broad at the head and sharply defined. The Myakka estuary, on the other hand, narrows gradually in width

making it a matter of opinion as to where the bay ends and the river begins.

In addition, a 10- or 12-league journey due north of the Myakka estuary would have led Narvaez nearly to the south shore of Tampa Bay, a good harbor for which he was searching and which his Indian guides would have known about.

A mysterious clue is provided by the Spanish chests -- each containing a "dead man." Nunez stated at a court of inquiry years later that the natives said a vessel had been wrecked in the bay. From it was taken the four chests, gold trinkets, feather plumes, shoes, broadcloth, canvas and iron.

Spaniards kept detailed records, yet we have no inkling of what ship at this period foundered in Tampa Bay, in Charlotte Harbor, or on the near Gulf coast. It may be that the gold and plumes were part of the loot taken by Cortes during the sack of Mexico.

The "bodies" found in chests certainly were skeletons and probably the remains of Spanish sailors preserved by the Indians as good luck trophies.

It was the custom of Florida Indians to expose bodies of the dead upon wooden platforms until the flesh putrefied from the bones. In about a year the bones were gathered, wrapped in a leather covering decorated with magic markings, and placed in some significant spot -- in the council house if the deceased had been a chief or powerful enemy, in a burial mound if of ordinary status.

Narvaez anchored in the mouth of a bay he called Santa Cruz (Holy Cross), a favorite name used by early Spanish explorers. According to Nunez, the landing place was "280 leagues from the Bay of Horses" which nearly all historians identify as Apalache Bay.

The distance given obviously is wrong. The distance in Spanish judical leagues from Apalache Bay to the entrance of Tampa Bay is about 80, and to the entrance of Charlotte Harbor is 110. Neither figure comes close to Nunez' estimate. It is easy to suppose that a printer misread manuscript and added an extraneous numeral ahead of the plausible 80 leagues that separate Apalache and Tampa bays.

The historian Barcia wrote that the ships sent by Narvaez to look for the harbor at Rio Palmas sailed north at first. After one ship was "cast away on shore" the remainder of the fleet "turned back, and five leagues below the Bay of Santa Cruz found the harbor that the land party had already discovered."