On the seventeenth day[5] of June, in the year fifteen hundred and twenty-seven, the Governor Pánphilo de Narváez left the port of San Lúcar de Barrameda,[6] authorized and commanded by your Majesty to conquer and govern the provinces of the main, extending from the River Palmas[7] to the cape of Florida. The fleet he took was five ships, in which went six hundred men, a few more or less; the officers (for we shall have to speak of them), were these, with their rank: Cabeça de Vaca, treasurer and high-sheriff; Alonso Enrriquez, comptroller; Alonso de Solis, distributor to your Majesty and assessor; Juan Xuarez,[8] a friar of Saint Francis, commissary, and four more friars of the same order. [5] The Spanish edition of 1542 has the date June 27. [6] At the mouth of the Guadalquivir, in the province of Cadiz, Spain; noted as the point of debarkation of Fernão Magalhães, or Magellan, September 20, 1519. [7] Probably the Rio de Santander, which enters the Gulf of Mexico one hundred miles north of Tampico. The name was later applied to the province that joined the province of Pánuco on the north. The latter was, in general terms, the region drained by the streams that empty into the Gulf about Tampico. [8] The edition of 1542 has "Juan Gutierrez." We arrived at the island of Santo Domingo, where we tarried near forty-five days, engaged in procuring for ourselves some necessary material, particularly horses. Here we lost from our fleet more than one hundred and forty men, who wished to remain, seduced by the partidos,[9] and advantages held out to them by the people of that country. [9] A term often used to designate one of the districts or territories into which a Spanish province was divided for purposes of administration, and having a head pueblo or village; but here employed to signify the favorable proposals which the colonists made to the deserters from the fleet. We sailed from the island and arrived at Santiago,[10] a port of Cuba, where, during some days that we remained, the Governor supplied himself further with men, also with arms and horses. It happened there that a gentleman, Vasco Porcallo[11] of Trinidad, which is also on the island,[12] offered to give the Governor some provisions which he had in the town, a hundred leagues from the port of Santiago. Accordingly the Governor set out with all the fleet for Trinidad; but coming to a port half way, called Cabo de Santa Cruz,[13] he thought it well to wait there, and send a vessel to bring the stores. To this end he ordered that a Captain Pantoja[14] should go for them with his ship, and for greater security, that I should accompany him with another. The Governor remained with four ships, having bought one at the island of Santo Domingo. [10] In southeastern Cuba, the Santiago de Cuba that was surrendered to the American forces in the summer of 1898.