about thirty leagues, and lies off the southern part of the said land; and they arrived in the Island at a town, to which they gave the name of San Juan de Puerta Latina,[1] and the Island they named Santa Cruz.[2] The same day on which they arrived there about 150 Indians of the town came to see them, and as it appeared, on the following day these Indians abandoned the town and fled to the woods.
Being in need of water, the Captain hoisted sail in order to obtain it elsewhere that same day, and while pursuing his voyage, it was agreed to return to the said port and Island of Santa Cruz, where he anchored and went on shore, finding the town without people, as though it had never been inhabited. He took his supply of water, returning to his ships without taking soundings, or learning anything so as to be able to give a true account to Your Royal Highnesses concerning that Island.
Setting sail he left, keeping on his voyage until he arrived at the land which Francisco Fernandez de Cordoba had discovered, where they coasted about, from south to west, until they came to a bay, which the said Captain Gonzalo and the chief pilot, Anton de Alaminos, named Bay of Ascension.[3] This, according to the opinion of the pilots, is very near to Punta de las Velas, discovered by Vicente Yañez[4] which is the part [passage in the MS. not intelligible] of the Bay which is very
- ↑ The town thus named by Grijalba, as described in Note i, page 124.
- ↑ Cozumel. Here the converted Indians, Melchor and Julian, began to act as interpreters.
- ↑ Bay of Ascension. This was on Thursday the 13th, feast of the Ascension, and they remained there reconnoitring until Sunday.
- ↑ Vincente Yañez Pinzon, who landed where about January 26, 1500, was one of the three Pinzon brothers who first sailed with Columbus from Palos in 1492. He afterwards commanded an expedition composed of four small ships which sailed from Palos in 1499, making the first discovery of land at the present Cape St. Augustine, on the coast of Brazil, in 1506. He again sailed with Juan de Solis, on a voyage to find the strait which it was thought joined the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and, in 1508, he repeated this fruitless experiment.
