Barcia also relates a fascinating human interest story, if true.

Narvaez' sea captain, Carballo, had on board the three remaining ships "ten married women." It is assumed they were wives of men who marched away, and that they allied themselves with new husbands during a year-long cruise waiting for the expedition to appear.

One of the women left behind is said to have prophesied the doom of Narvaez and his companions. Nunez told the court of inquiry after his return: "When they (sailors) had betaken themselves to the ships, all of them looking at that woman, they distinctly heard her to say to the females that, well, since their husbands had gone inland, putting their persons in so great jeopardy, their wives should in no way take more account of them, but ought to be looking after whom they would marry, and she did accordingly."

More likely, the women were the wives of Narvaez and his officers whom he had intended to drop off at Havana before embarking for Florida. The fourth storm that drove the fleet prematurely to the mainland involved the ladies in the adventure unexpectedly. It is romantic to believe they remained faithful to their husbands, for Dona Narvaez commissioned a rescue party.

Barcia also states that Narvaez mistreated the local Indian chief by cutting off his nose and turning fierce war dogs on his mother to devour her alive. If such an atrocity took place, Nunez does not mention it, nor does the circumstance of few Indian contacts provide such an opportunity. Barcia probably got his notes confused with those of a slave hunter or another explorer.

THE MARCH INLAND

After his two excursions inland, Narvaez was encouraged to continue his journey to Apalache Bay on foot. Nunez describes the ensuing debate:

The next day, the first of May, the Governor called aside the Commissary, the Comptroller, the Assessor, myself, a sailor named Bartoloma Fernandez, and a notary, Hieronymo Alaniz. Being together he said that he desired to penetrate the interior, and that the ships ought to go along the coast until they should come to the port which the pilots believed was very near on the way to the River Palmas. He asked us for our views.

I said it appeared to me that under no

circumstances ought we to leave the vessels until they were in a secure and peopled harbor; that he should observe the pilots were not confident and did not agree in any particular, neither did they know where we were; that, more than this, the horses were in no condition to serve us in such exigencies as might occur.

Above all, we were going without being able to communicate with the Indians by use of speech and without an interpreter. We could but poorly understand ourselves with them, or learn what we desired to know of the land. We were about entering a country of which we had no account, and had no knowledge of its character, of what there was in it, or by what people inhabited. Neither did we know in what part of it we were.

Beside all this, we had not food to sustain us in wandering we knew not whither. With regard to the stores in the ships, rations could not be given to each man for such a journey more than a pound of biscuit and another of bacon. My opinion was that we should embark and seek a harbor and a soil bet-ter than this to occupy, since what we had seen of it was desert and poor, such as had never before been discovered in those parts.

To the Commissary everything appeared otherwise. He thought we ought not to embark; but that, always keeping the coast, we should go in search of the harbor, which the pilots stated was only 10 or 15 leagues from there, on the way to Panuco. He said that it was not possible, marching ever by the shore, we should fail to come upon it, because they said it stretched up into the land a dozen leagues. Whichever might first find it would wait for the others.

The Commissary said that to embark would be to brave the Almighty after so many adversities en-countered since leaving Spain, so many storms, and so great losses of men and ships sustained before reaching there. For these reasons we should march along the coast until we reached the harbor. Those in the ships should take a like direction until they arrived at the same place.

This plan seemed the best to adopt to the rest who were present, except the Notary, who said that when the ships should be abandoned they ought to be in a known, safe haven, a place with in-habitants. With this done the Governor might advance inland and do what might seem proper.

The Governor followed his own judgment and the counsel of others. Seeing his determination, I required him in behalf of your Majesty not to quit the ships before putting them in port and making them secure. Accordingly I asked a certificate of