Of Pamphilo de Narvaez, on the contrary, a much inferior man, we have far more satisfactory relations. His Proclamation to the Indians[1] has been justly styled a curious monument of the spirit of the times. It was occasioned by a merciful(!) provision of the laws of the Indies forbidding war to be waged against the natives before they had been formally summoned to recognize the authority of the Pope and His Most Catholic Majesty. Should, however, the barbarians be so contumacious as to prefer their ancestral religion to that of their invaders, or their own chief to the Spanish king, then, says Narvaez, “With the aid of God and my own sword I shall march upon you; with all means and from all sides I shall war against you; I shall compel you to obey the Holy Church and his Majesty; I shall seize you, your wives and your children; I shall enslave you, shall sell you, or otherwise dispose of you as His Majesty may see fit; your property shall I take, and destroy, and every possible harm shall I work you as refractory subjects.” Thus did cruelty and avarice stalk abroad in the garb of religion, and an insatiable rapacity shield itself by the precepts of Christianity. Among the officers appointed by the king to look after the royal interest in this expedition, holding the post of comptroller or factor (Tesorero), was a certain Alvar Nuñez, of the distinguished family of Cabeza de Vaca or the Cow’s Head; deriving their origin and unsonorous name from Martin Alhaja, a mountaineer of Castro Ferral, who, placing the bones of a cow’s head as a landmark, was instrumental in gaining for the Christians the decisive battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), and was ennobled in consequence. When war, disease, and famine had reduced the force of Narvaez from three hundred to only half a dozen men, Alvar Nuñez was one of these, and after seven years wandering, replete with the wildest adventure, returned to Spain, there to receive the government of a fleet and the appointment of Adelantado to the unexplored regions around the Rio de la Plata. Years afterwards, when his rapacity and reckless tyranny had excited a mutiny among his soldiers and the animosity of his associates, or, as his defenders maintain, his success their envy and ill-will, he was arraigned before the council of the Indies in Spain. While the suit was pending, as a stroke of policy in order to exculpate his former life and set forth to the world his steadfast devotion to the interests of the king, in conjunction with his secretary Pedro Fernandez he wrote and published two works, one under his own supervision detailing his adventures in Florida,[2] the other his transactions in South America. Twenty-seven years had elapsed since the expedition of Narvaez, and probably of the few that escaped, he alone survived. When we consider this, and the end for which the book was written, what wonder that we find Alvar Nuñez always giving the best advice which Narvaez never follows, and always at