In 1529 he sailed with the ill-fated expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez to Apalache in Florida, was shipwrecked, tried to regain the Spanish settlements in boats, and then cast by a storm absolutely naked, and with only three companions, upon an unknown land. Taken by the Indians, he was made a slave, then rose to be a pedlar, then a doctor, and finally a chief, held sacred for his mysterious powers. At last he made his way on foot into the territory of New Spain, not as a captive, but as the leader of several hundred Indians, who followed him and did his bidding as if he had been born their chief. Rambling about for months, but always followed by his Indians, he at length encountered a Spanish horse-soldier, and, accosting him, found he had almost forgotten Spanish during his ten years’ sojourn with the Indians. His first entreaty, when he found Spanish gradually returning to him, was to the Spaniards not to harass his Indian following. Then he besought the Indians themselves to cease their nomad life and cultivate the soil. In neither case was he successful, as the Spaniards, like all other Europeans, held Indians little removed from dogs. And for the Indians, the few remaining are as much attached to their old wandering life as in the days of the discovery of the New World. In all that Alvar Nuñez writes, he shows a grandeur of soul and spirit far different from the writings, not only of the conquerors of the New World, but of the conquerors of Africa of to-day. For him no bragging of his exploits.[37] All that he says he sets down modestly and with excuses (as every now and then, ‘Me pesa hablar de mis trabajos’), and as befits a gentleman. Lastly, he leaves the reader (when describing his captivity in Florida), by telling him quite quietly and without comment that God was pleased to save from all these perils himself, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andres Dorantes, and that the fourth was a negro called Estevanico, a native of Azimur. But, not contented with his ten years’ captivity, after three years at home he entered into a certain _asiento_[38] and _capitulacion_[39] with the King to sail at his own charges with an expedition to succour Don Pedro de Mendoza, who was hard pressed by famine and the Indians at Buenos Ayres. He agreed to furnish eight thousand ducats, horses, arms, men, and provisions at his own expense, upon condition that he was made Governor and Adelantado of the Rio de la Plata, and General both of its armies and its fleets.