The greed of gold, silver, and pearls,—the master passion governing Spanish capitalists and the horde of moneyless adventurers at this time in the New World,—was the cause of the fitting out of three vessels, in 1517, to go in search of new countries west of the island of Cuba. This fleet, under the command of Francisco Hernando de Cordoba, set sail, with one hundred and ten soldiers, about the beginning of February, from San Cristobal, on the north side of the island, and after a voyage of twenty-one days came in sight of the northeastern part of the peninsula of Yucatan, where an Indian town was seen, to which the Spaniards gave the name El Gran Cairo. Near this place three temples, built of stone and lime, were found, in which were many clay idols “some of them having terrible shapes, seemingly representing Indians committing horrible offences. In these temples,” says Bernal Diaz del Castillo,[311] who was connected with the expedition, “we also found wooden boxes containing other gods with hellish faces, several small shells, some ornaments, three crowns, and a number of trinkets, some in the shape of fish, others in the shape of ducks, all made of an inferior kind of gold. Seeing all these things, the gold and the good architecture of the temples, we felt overjoyed at the discovery of the country.” At a town, which the Spaniards called San Lazaro, although they were aware that the Indians called it Campeachy, they were invited to land by the inhabitants, “who wore fine mantles made of cotton.” “They took us” Diaz remarks “to some large edifices, which were strongly built of stone and lime and were in many ways attractive. These were temples, the walls of which were covered with figures representing snakes and all kinds of gods. About an altar we saw several fresh spots of blood. On some of the idols there were figures like crosses. There were some paintings representing groups of Indians. All these greatly astonished us, for we had neither seen nor heard of such things before.”