Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/164

144 de Aguilar, who told us all about how he came to be lost, and the length of time he had been in captivity, which is as we have already related to Your Royal Highnesses.

Of a truth, this adverse weather coming upon us so unexpectedly seemed a great mystery and miracle of God, and led us to believe that no enterprise undertaken in Your Majesties' service, be it what it may, could end in anything but good.

We learned from Jeronimo de Aguilar, that the other Spaniards, who were lost with him in the shipwrecked caravel, were scattered over all the land, which he told us was very extensive, and that it would be quite impossible to gather them without staying and losing much time over it. So, as the Captain Fernando Cortes saw that the provisions of the armada were giving out, and that the people would be exposed to suffer great want from hunger if they delayed longer, and that this would not contribute to the object of their voyage, he determined, with the approval of the others to depart. They immediately set sail, therefore, leaving that Island of Cozumel, which is now called Santa Cruz, entirely pacified, so that had it been their intention to colonise, the Indians