The Compte-Rendu of Guido de las Bazares,[24] who explored Apalache Bay (Bahia de Miruelo) in 1559, to which is appended an epitome of the voyage of Angel de Villafañe to the coasts of South Carolina in 1561, and a letter from the viceroy of New Spain[25] relating to the voyage of Tristan de Arellano to Pensacola Bay (Santa Maria de Galve), are of value in verifying certain important dates in the geographical history of our country; and as they indicate, contrary to the assertion of a distinguished living historian,[26] that the Spaniards had _not_ wholly forgotten that land, “the avenues to which death seemed to guard.” Much more valuable than any of these is the memoir of Hernando D’Escalante Fontanedo.[27] This writer gives the following account of himself: born of Spanish parents in the town of Carthagena in 1538, at the age of thirteen he was sent to Spain to receive his education, but suffering shipwreck off the Florida coast, was spared and brought up among the natives, living with various tribes till his thirtieth year. He adds that in the same ship with him were Don Martin de Guzman, Hernando de Andino, deputy from Popayan, Alonso de Mesa, and Juan Otis de Zarate. Now at least one of these, the last mentioned, was never shipwrecked at any time on Florida, and in the very year of the alleged occurrence (1551) was appointed captain in a cavalry regiment in Peru, where he remained for a number of years;[28] nor do I know the slightest collateral authority for believing that either of the others suffered such a casuality. He asserts, moreover, that after his return to Spain he sought the post of interpreter under Aviles, then planning his attack on the Huguenots. But as this occurred in 1565, how could he have spent from his thirteenth to his thirtieth year, beginning with 1551, a prisoner among the Indians? In spite of these contradictions, there remains enough to make his memoir of great worth. He boasts that he could speak four Indian tongues, that there were only two with which he was not familiar, and calls attention to what has since been termed their “polysynthetic” structure. Thus he mentions that the phrase _se-le-te-ga, go and see if any one is at the look-out_, is compounded partially of _tejihue, look-out_; “but in speaking,” he observes, “the Floridians abridge their words more than we do.” Though he did not obtain the post of interpreter, he accompanied the expedition of Aviles, and takes credit to himself for having preserved it from the traitorous designs of his successful rival: “If I and a mulatto,” he says, “had not hindred him, all of us would have been killed. Pedro Menendez would not have died at Santander, but in Florida, where there is neither river nor bay unknown to me.” For this service they received no reward, and he complains: “As for us, we have not received any pay, and have returned with broken health; we have gained very little therefore in going to