SOURCE: “The Ordeal of Cabeza de Vaca,” in American Heritage, Vol. 12, No. 1, December 1960, pp. 32-7; 78-82.

In the following essay, McGann recounts the major adventures of Cabeza de Vaca as described in the Relación

A crude boat carrying forty exhausted Spaniards drifted close to the long Texas beach. “Near dawn it seemed to me that the tumbling roar of the sea could be heard. Surprised, I called the boatswain and he replied that we were near the coast. We sounded and found ourselves in seven fathoms. It seemed to the boatswain that we ought to keep to sea until sunrise and I took an oar and pulled on the land side until we were a league off-shore. Then we turned the stern to the sea. Near the land a breaker took and threw the boat the cast of a horseshoe out of the water. With the violent...