In the year of our Lord 1538, in the month of April, the _adelantado_ delivered his ships to the captains which were to go in them; and took for himself a new ship, and good of sail, and gave another to Andrew de Vasconcelos, in which the Portuguese went. He went over the bar of San Lucar on Sunday, being San Lazarus day, in the morning, of the month and year aforesaid, with great joy, commanding his trumpets to be sounded, and many shots of the ordnance to be discharged. II.――DE SOTO ATTACKS THE INDIANS, AND FINDS A FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN. FROM the town of Ucita,[123] the governor sent the alcalde mayor, Baltasar de Gallegos, with forty horsemen and eighty footmen, into the country, to see if they could take any Indians; and the captain, John Rodriguez Lobillo, another way, with fifty footmen. The most of them were swordmen and targetiers;[124] and the rest were shot and crossbow men. They passed through a country full of bogs, where horses could not travel. Half a league from the camp, they lighted upon certain cabins of Indians near a river. The people that were in them leaped into the river; yet they took four Indian women: and twenty Indians charged us, and so distressed us, that we were forced to retire to our camp, being, as they are, exceeding ready with their weapons. Illustration: LANDING OF DE SOTO. It is a people so warlike and so nimble, that they care not a whit for any footmen; for, if their enemies charge them, they run away; and, if they turn their backs, they are presently upon them; and the thing they most flee is the shot of an arrow. They never stand still, but are always running and traversing[125] from one place to another, by reason whereof neither crossbow nor arquebuse can aim at them: and, before one crossbow-man can make one shot, an Indian will discharge three or four arrows; and he seldom misseth what he shooteth at. An arrow, where it findeth no armor, pierceth as deeply as a crossbow. Their bows are very long; and their arrows are made of certain canes like reeds, very heavy, and so strong, that a sharp cane passeth through a target. Some they arm in the point with a sharp bone of a fish like a chisel; and in others they fasten certain stones like points of diamonds. For the most part, when they light upon an armor, they break in the place where they are bound together. Those of cane do split and pierce a coat of mail, and are more hurtful than the other.