the conventions of the people of whom one writes.

Whilst Irala was conciliating the Guaranis in Paraguay, Charles V. had
not forgotten that the new settlement of Buenos Ayres had been abandoned.
After much search, he selected Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
to be the new Governor; and, as Alvar Nunez was perhaps
the most remarkable of all the Spanish `conquistadores' of the New World,
it may not be out of place to give some facts of his career,
as his policy in regard to the Indians was almost that of the Jesuits
in after-times.

As he himself informs us in his Commentaries,* his `father was that
Pedro de Vera who won Canaria,' and his mother `Dona Teresa Cabeza de Vaca,
a noble lady of Jerez de la Frontera.' After the Spanish fashion of the time,
he used the names of both his parents.

--
* `Comentarios de Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca'. Published by
Don Andres Gonzalez Barcia in his collection of `Early Historians
of the Indies' (Madrid, 1749).
--

In 1529 he sailed with the ill-fated expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez
to Apalache in Florida, was shipwrecked, tried to regain
the Spanish settlements in boats, and then cast by a storm absolutely naked,
and with only three companions, upon an unknown land. Taken by the Indians,
he was made a slave, then rose to be a pedlar, then a doctor,
and finally a chief, held sacred for his mysterious powers.
At last he made his way on foot into the territory of New Spain,
not as a captive, but as the leader of several hundred Indians,