Note 69 — Chapter VII

“Pólvora y Ballestas, de que teniamos muy estrema necesidad.” (Rel. Terc. de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 278.) It was probably the expedition in which Ponce de Leon lost his life; an expedition to the very land which the chivalrous cavalier had himself first visited in quest of the Fountain of Health. The story is pleasantly told by Irving, as the reader may remember, in his “Companions of Columbus.”