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Article: Lost; A dramatic retelling of conquistador Cabeza de Vaca's eight- year expedition across the New World.
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- June 11, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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BRUTAL JOURNEY
The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America
By Paul Schneider
Henry Holt. 366 pp. $26
On May 1, 1528, the Spanish conquistador Panfilo de Narvaez
marched an army of 300 men away from his boats along the western
coast of Florida near Tampa Bay, heading north in search of great
cities to conquer and gold to amass. Eight years later and 2,000
miles away, four survivors walked out of the hills on the western
coast of Mexico. Three of them prepared a report of their experiences
for authorities on Hispaniola, but that report exists today only in
paraphrase. The sole direct eyewitness account is the one first
published in 1542 by the most prominent of the survivors, the ...