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Our Catholic Heritage in Texas
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the last of the three ships sent by Garay in 1520 followed its sister ship to the bottom of the Gulf. 43 The survivors of the ill-fated attempt to establish a colony, desirous to join the successful army of Cortes, asked and obtained permission from his lieutenant at Veracruz to do so. It seems that Camargo, who had been a governor of Jamaica/' marched to Mexico and joined Cortes with about sixty men. But they must have been a sickly looking group of soldiers after their unfortunate experiences along the Gulf coast. Diaz del Castillo, who saw them when they came into camp, says: "They looked so sallow and green, and their bellies were so prominent and flabby, that we nicknamed them 'Panciverdetes,' meaning 'green-faced-puffed bellies'." 45 Garay's t/1ird attempt to settle t/1e Rio Grande. It seems that after Camargo left Jamaica, hearing no news from him and thinking he had been successful in establishing the projected colony, Garay dispatched one or two other vessels with reenforcements. These probably sailed to the Rio Grande, but finding no sign of a settlement there and the Indians having assumed a belligerent attitude after their experiences with Camargo, the ships made their way to the Panuco region, where the natives received them with no more kindness. After losing many of their men in a futile effort to gain a foothold in the vicinity of the Panuco River, the survivors, like those of Camargo, finally found their way to Veracruz, where they were welcomed and dispatched to reenforce the army of Cortes for the final recapture of Mexico City. It was the ghastly remains of these men, which Cortes found hanging as trophies from the walls of · Indian temples in the Provinces of Chila and Panuco, when he personally took possession of this region the following year. One of the captains of the reenforcements sent to Camargo's colony was Miguel Diego de Auz or Aito, who joined Cortes a short time after Camargo did, with a troop of fifty-odd soldiers and thirty-seven horses. He became a prominent figure in Mexico after the conquest." Garay's personal expedition to the Pam,co. In the meantime, while Camargo and his men were trying to establish a settlement to defend the claims of Garay to the new lands explored by Pineda, the Governor
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43 Herrera, op. cit. "Oviedo, Historia, I, 581. 4SDiaz de! Castillo, Historia Verdadera, I, 469-470. ' 6 Cervantes de Salazar, Cro11ica, 564; Oviedo, op. cit., III, 429; 442.
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