Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/195

 Cruz. One of my servants also had sent me a ship with provisions of meat, bread, wine, oil, and vinegar, but everything was lost, excepting three men who took refuge on a desert island five leagues from the coast for whom I sent to search. They were found in good health, having kept themselves alive by eating the seals which were plentiful on the island, and a kind of fruit like figs. I certify to Your Majesty that this expedition cost me alone more than thirty thousand dollars in gold, as Your Majesty may order to be shown by the accounts, if such is your will; and those who went with me had as great expenses, for horses, provisions, arms, and horse-shoes, which at that time cost their weight in gold, or twice their weight in silver. But, to serve Your Majesty well, we would have undertaken it, even had our expenses been greater, for, besides putting those Indians under the imperial yoke of Your Majesty, our expedition produced good results, for, immediately after, there arrived a ship with many people and provisions and, had the country not been at peace, none of them would have escaped, as had happened with the others whom the Indians had killed, and whose remains we had found in their temples. I mean their skins, cured in such a manner that we recognised the faces of many of them. When the adelantado, Francisco de Garay, arrived in that province, as I shall relate to Your Cæsarian Majesty later, neither he, nor any of those with him, would have escaped alive; for the wind drove them thirty leagues from Panuco where they lost some ships, and the others were driven disabled ashore, where, had they not found the people at peace, and ready to carry them on their backs, and serve them, in a Spanish town, they would have all perished, even had there been no other hostilities. It