No sooner had we sailed from the Island of Cuba on our voyage with Captain Juan de Grijalva, than Diego Velásquez began to be anxious lest some calamity had befallen us, and he was always longing for news of us, so he sent a small ship with some soldiers in search of us, under the command of Cristóval de Olid, a person of consideration and very energetic (who was afterwards Maestro de Campo in the expedition under Cortés). Diego Velásquez ordered him to follow the track of Francisco Hernández de Córdova until he should overtake us.

It appears that Cristóval de Olid, when he went in search of us, was struck by a heavy gale while anchored near the coast of Yucatan, and the pilot whom they had on board, so as to save the vessel from foundering at anchor, ordered the cables to be cut, so they lost their anchors and returned to Santiago de Cuba.

Diego Velásquez was at the port and heard that they brought no news of us, and if he was anxious before, he was doubly so now. However, about this time the Captain, Pedro de Alvarado, arrived with the gold, and the cloth, and the sick men, and with the whole story of what we had discovered; and when the Governor beheld the gold jewelry that the Captain Pedro de Alvarado had brought with him, he greatly overestimated its value.