[52] As it was now late in June, this is not explicable, unless the season was an unusual one. [53] Buckingham Smith thinks it strange that the turkey and the alligator are not particularly mentioned among the fauna of the region. Two hours after our arrival at Apalachen, the Indians who had fled from there came in peace to us, asking for their women and children, whom we released; but the detention of a cacique by the Governor produced great excitement, in consequence of which they returned for battle early the next day, and attacked us with such promptness and alacrity that they succeeded in setting fire to the houses in which we were. As we sallied they fled to the lakes near by, because of which and the large maize fields we could do them no injury, save in the single instance of one Indian, whom we killed. The day following, others came against us from a town on the opposite side of the lake, and attacked us as the first had done, escaping in the same way, except one who was also slain. We were in the town twenty-five days, in which time we made three incursions, and found the country very thinly peopled and difficult to travel for the bad passages, the woods and lakes. We inquired of the cacique we kept and the natives we brought with us, who were the neighbors and enemies of these Indians, as to the nature of the country, the character and condition of the inhabitants, of the food and all other matters concerning it. Each answered apart from the rest, that the largest town in all that region was Apalachen; the people beyond were less numerous and poorer, the land little occupied, and the inhabitants much scattered; that thenceforward were great lakes, dense forests, immense deserts and solitudes. We then asked touching the region towards the south, as to the towns and subsistence in it. They said that in keeping such a direction, journeying nine days, there was a town called Aute,[54] the inhabitants whereof had much maize, beans, and pumpkins, and being near the sea they had fish, and that those people were their friends. [54] Most authorities agree that this place was at or near the site of St. Marks, south-southeast of Tallahassee, although the distance seems too short for nine days' travel, as will be seen. In view of the poverty of the land, the unfavorable accounts of the population and of everything else we heard, the Indians making continual war upon us, wounding our people and horses at the places where they went to drink, shooting from the lakes with such safety to themselves that we could not retaliate, killing a lord of Tescuco, named Don Pedro,[55] whom the commissary brought with him, we determined to leave that place and go in quest of the sea, and the town of Aute of which we were told. [55] See Buckingham Smith, _Relation of Alvar Nuñez Cabeça de Vaca_, 1871, p. 42, note 7, regarding this Aztec prince of the blood.