On the 24th, leaving Tortugas, they steered S.W. and by W. On the 26th they saw land, which they sailed along till the 29th, when they came to anchor to trim their yards and sails, but could not tell what country it was. Most of the Spaniards believed they were on the coast of Cuba, because they found canoes, dogs, knives, and others tools of iron. On the 25th of July they were among a cluster of low islands, still ignorant of where they were, till Ponce sent to view an island which appeared to be Bahama, as indeed it was said to be by an old woman whom they found in another island, and in which they were confirmed by a pilot named Diego Miruelo, who happened to be there in a boat from Hispaniola. Having ranged backwards and forwards till the 23d of September, and refitted the ships, Juan Ponce resolved to send one of them to take a view of the island of Bimini, which the Indians reported to contain much wealth, and to have a spring which made old people young again. Juan Perez de Ortubia was appointed captain of that ship, and Antonio de Alaminos pilot. They took two Indians along with them to point out the shoals, which were so numerous that it was both difficult and dangerous to get through among them. Twenty days afterwards, Juan Ponce returned to Porto Rico, and was followed some time after by Ortubia, who had found the island of Bimini, which was large, pleasant, and abounding in good water and delightful groves; but the wonderful spring was not be discovered. It is certain that Juan Ponce de Leon, besides the main design of discovering new islands which all the Spaniards then aspired to, was desirous of finding out the spring of Bimini and a certain river in Florida, in both of which it was asserted by the natives of Cuba and Hispaniola that old people became young again by bathing in their waters. It is likewise well known that many of the natives of Cuba, firmly believing the existence of such a river, had gone over into Florida in search of it, and had built a town there before the coming of the Spaniards to the West Indies, and that their descendents continue there to this day. This report prevailed among all the princes or caciques in these parts, who were all so anxious to find out this wonderful river, that there was not a river, brook, or lake in all Florida in which some of them had not bathed, and many still persist in the belief that it is the river now called Jordan at Cape Santa Elena, without reflecting that the Spaniards first gave it that name in 1520, when the country of Chicora was discovered.

Although this voyage turned out to little or no account to Juan Ponce, it yet encouraged him to go to court to sue for some reward for having discovered this new country, which he still continued to believe an island or cluster of islands, and which opinion was retained by the Spaniards for some years. Yet this voyage was actually beneficial on another account, by the discovery of a passage to Spain from the West Indies through the channel of Bahama, which was first performed by the pilot Alaminos. For the better understanding the voyage of Ponce, it must be observed that the Lucayo or Bahama Islands consist of three groups, the first, or Bahama cluster gives name to the passage, and in which the currents are most impetuous: The second is called De los Organos; and the third the Martyrs, which are next to the Cayos de las Tortugas, or Turtle Keys to the westwards; which last are not to be seen from any distance, being all low sands, and in consequence many ships have perished on them, and all along the Bahama channel, and on the islands of Tortugas. Havannah in the island of Cuba and Florida, are south and north of each other; and between them are these before-mentioned islands of Organos, Bahama, Martyrs, and Tortugas, having a channel with a violent current, twenty leagues across in the narrowest part between Havannah and the Martyrs, and fourteen leagues from the Martyrs to Florida. The widest part of this channel is forty leagues, with many shoals and deep channels between these, but has no safe passage for ships, and is only practicable for canoes. But this passage from the Havannah for Spain, is along the channel of Bahama, between the Havannah, the Martyrs, the Lucayos, and Cape Canaveral.

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No farther attempt appears to have been made towards the conquest and settlement of Florida by the Spaniards, till the year 1528, when Panfilo de Narvaez made a most disastrous expedition to that country, which will form the subject of the ensuing section of this chapter; except that about the year 1525, the licentiate Luke Vasquez de Ayllon sailed with three ships for that country from Santiago in the island of Hispaniola126. Vasquez arrived with his small armament at Cape Santa Elena in Florida, where he found an Indian town called Oritza; since named Chicora by the Spaniards, and another town in the neighbourhood called Guale, to which the Spaniards have given the name of Gualdape. At this place is the river Jordan, so named from the pilot by whom it was discovered, and where Vasquez lost one of his ships. He proceeded however in his enterprise with the other two ships, and landed two hundred men upon the coast of Florida; but being himself unacquainted with military discipline, and little regarded by his men, his troops were defeated by the natives and mostly slain. The few who escaped returned to Hispaniola; some alleging that Vasquez was of the number, while others assert that he was slain in Florida. In this unfortunate expedition, from which great consequences had been expected, no other towns but the two above mentioned were seen in Florida; and by this disaster all attempts for the conquest and settlement of that country were laid aside for some time, more especially as all the natives who had been there met with appeared poor and miserable, and having very small quantities of gold and silver, and even what little they had appeared to have been brought to them from remote parts of the country.

The abortive attempt of Panfilo de Narvaez to supersede Cortes in the command of the expedition against Mexico has been already related. He afterwards endeavoured to settle a colony at the Rio de las Palmas in the bay of Mexico, whence he was expelled by the arrogance of Nunno de Guzman, who had been appointed governor of the adjoining province of Panuco, and endeavoured to appropriate the territories belonging to others in his neighbourhood to his own advantage and emolument in the most unjustifiable manner. In March 1528, Narvaez sailed from Cuba with four ships and a brigantine for the conquest of Florida, having a force of about four hundred men with eighty horses. During the voyage, the squadron was carried among the shoals of Canarreo by the unskilfulness of the pilot Meruelo, where the ships got aground and remained for fifteen days constantly touching with their keels and unable to get into deep water. At the end of this period a storm at south brought so large an accession of water from the bay upon these flats that the ships got off. At Guaniguanigo they encountered another storm in which they were near perishing, and met with a third at Cape Corrientes. Three days after getting to windward of Cape St Antonio, they were driven by contrary winds to within twelve leagues of the Havannah; and when about to put in there for shelter were carried back by a south wind to the coast of Florida, where they arrived on the 12th of April, and came to anchor in the mouth of a bay where they could perceive some Indian huts on the shore128. Alonzo Enriquez, the comptroller of the armament, hailed the natives from a small island in the bay, and procured from them some fish and venison by means of barter.