r the greater part of the biscuits and
salted meat was on board the vessel which had got ashore off Xalisco. As
the inhabitants of Santa Cruz are perfect savages, and neither grow
maise nor in anywise till the ground, but merely live on wild fruits,
fish, and animals, there arose so dreadful a famine among Cortes'
troops, that twenty-three of the men died of hunger and disease. The
greater part of the remaining troops likewise suffered from ill-health,
and they threw out bitter curses against Cortes, the island, and the
whole voyage of discovery.

Cortes, determining, if possible, to put an end to their distress, ran
out with the vessel which had arrived in search of the two others,
taking with him fifty men, two smiths, and several shipwrights. On
arriving off Xalisco he found one of them lying on a sand-bank, quite
deserted, and the other he discovered jammed between the coral rocks. By
dint of the utmost exertions he succeeded in setting them afloat again;
and, after the carpenters had properly repaired them, he arrived safely
with the two vessels and their cargoes at Santa Cruz. Those of the
troops who had not tasted any nourishing food for so long a time ate so
ravenously of the salted meat that half of them died of a violent
dysentery.

In order not to witness this scene of misery any longer, Cortes again
set sail from Santa Cruz, and discovered the coast of California. Cortes
himself was in very bad health about this time, and he would gladly have
returned to New Spain but he feared the slanderous tongues of his
enemies, who would be sure to make their observations respecting the
large sums of money he expended in the discovery of countries which held
out no advantage; besides, he could not brook the idea that people
should say, all his present undertakings were failures, and that this
was owing to the curses which the veteran Conquistadores of New Spain
had heaped upon him.

During the whole of this time the marchioness Del Valle had heard no
tidings of her husband, and as information had been received that a
vessel had been wrecked off the coast of Xalisco, she became excessively
low-spirited, and felt almost sure that her husband had been lost at
sea. In order, however, if possible, to gain some certain information
respecting her husband's fate, she sent out two vessels, under the
command of a captain named Ulloa, to whom she gave a letter for her
husband if he should perchance meet with him alive, in which