Welcome to Cabesa de Baca.

Episode 11, Faith the size of a pecan. I'm Brandon Seale.

After their first few months on Galveston Island, the 14 surviving Narvaise Expeditionaries knew that they had worn out their welcome.

And so they decided to move on, to try for the Rio Panuco one more time.

But when the date of their departure arrived, three of their companions were too ill to join them.

The notary, a formerly hearty young man named Lope de Oviedo, three of their companions were too ill to join them.

The notary, a formerly hearty young man named Lope de Oviedo,

and the expedition's treasurer were, in fact, so weak that they were barely even conscious.

The Healthy Eleven debated what to do, certain that leaving behind the three was leaving them to die in this, quote,

foreign and evil land, end but it was spring the barren country around them was as fruitful as it was ever going to be

and they couldn't risk waiting around to see if their three companions would even survive the disease

that had already killed 75 or so of their fellow expeditionaries and And so they left. Soon after leaving Galveston

Island, the Healthy Eleven came across another Nive Ice Expeditionary who had been living with a

different group of natives on the mainland. This gave them hope that further ahead there might

be others still, and the party of now 12 continued down the coast.

Their number was soon reduced by drownings and starvation, however, to maybe eight or so.

These eight eventually stumbled across the wreckage of one of the other rafts from that pitiful flotilla the previous year.

And not long after that, a Castilian timidly emerged from the brush and presented himself

to them.

It was Figueroa, one of the four swimmers that the group had dispatched to go find Panuco

just days after landing on Galveston Island back in November.

The group peppered him with questions.

...