Ottr Catholic Heritage in T cxas
after the governor had ferried the men across, he revoked the commis- sion of Alonso Enriquez as his lieutenant and second in command and appointed Captain Pantoja, one of those in his boat, to replace him. When night fell, according to the narrative, the governor declined to come ashore. He chose to stay aboard with a sick page named Campo and a pilot named Antonio Perez. He himself was "very feeble and infirm and full of leprosy" 41 at this time. During the day everything had been unloaded and there was neither food nor water on the boat. That night a strong norther blew the helpless barge with only a rock for an anchor out to sea. The unfortunate commander who had seen service in Cuba and Santo Domingo and who had vainly striven for mastery with Cortes, the conqueror of the empire of the Aztecs, was at last to find a grave in the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Texas, in the vicinity of Matagorda Bay. With his two com- panions he was spared the sufferings of the survivors. 42 The next day the discouraged band, finding their commander had disappeared, attempted to continue their weary march along the coast. The numerous lakes and inlets encountered forced the men to build rafts to cross the waterways. This naturally delayed their progress consid- erably. Somewhere southwest of Cavallo Pass, they seemed to have crossed over to the mainland. "Going ahead, they reached a point of timber, near the shore. Here they found drinking water, wood, crayfish, and other sea food." It was now late in November and it was decided to spend the winter here. This location was very likely present l_,ive Oak Pqint, at the mouth of ~6pano Ba,.:!. 43 Cold, hunger, and sickness began soon to decimate the ranks of the exhausted survivors. Pantoja, the new appointed lieutenant governor, treated the men harshly. His overbearing and haughty attitude enraged Sotomayor, a brother of Vasco Porcallo·, the man who had given supplies and much help to Narvaez in Cuba. One day, in the heat of an argument, he struck Pantoja a blow with a stick and killed him. "Thus did the number go on diminishing, the living cutting up the dead." At last
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"Oviedo, Vol. 3, p. 594; Hodge, 62. 42 Barcia, I, 19; Hodge, 62; Bandelier, 84; Buckingham Smith, 93.
0 Davenport, "The Expedition of Pamfilo de Narvaez," Vol. 27, pp. 238-239, note 23; R. T. Hill, Dallas News, August 6, 1933; Davenport and Wells, Quar- terly, Vol. 22, p. 125. Davenport made available in English for the first time the Oviedo account of the Narvaez expedition which is based on the report made by Castillo, Dorantes, and Cabeza de Vaca to the Audiencia of Santo Domingo. It is amply annotated. Hereafter referred to as Davenport.
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