Sacred Caesarian Catholic Majesty : '
Among the many who have held sway, I think no prince can be
found whose service has been attended with the ardor and emulation
shown for that of your Highness at this time. The inducement is
evident and powerful : men do not pursue together the same career
without motive, and strangers are observed to strive with those who
are equally impelled by religion and loyalty.
Although ambition and love of action are common to all, as to the
advantages that each may gain, there are great inequalities of fortune,
the result not of conduct, but only accident, nor caused by the fault
of any one, but coming in the providence of God and solely by His
will. Hence to one arises deeds more signal than he thought to
achieve ; to another the opposite in every way occurs, so that he can
show no higher proof of purpose than his effort, and at times even
this is so concealed that it cannot of itself appear.
As for me, I can say in undertaking the march I made on the main
by the royal authority, I firmly trusted that my conduct and services
would be as evident and distinguished as were those of my ancestors,
and that I should not have to speak in order to be reckoned among
those who for diligence and fidelity in affairs your Majesty honors.
Yet, as neither my counsel nor my constancy availed to gain aught
for which we set out, agreeably to your interests, for our sins, no
one of the many armaments that have gone into those parts has been
permitted to find itself in straits great like ours, or come to an end
alike forlorn and fatal. To me, one only duty remains, to present a
relation of what was seen and heard in the ten years I wandered lost
and in privation through many and remote lands.' Not merely a
statement of positions and distances, animals and vegetation, but of
the diverse customs of the many and very barbarous people with
whom I talked and dwelt, as well as all other matters I could hear
of and discern, that in some way I may avail your Highness. My
hope of going out from among those nations was always small, still
my care and diligence were none the less to keep in particular re-
membrance everything, that if at any time God our Lord should will
to bring me where I now am, it might testify to my exertion in the
royal behalf.
As the narrative is in my opinion of no trivial value to those who
in your name go to subdue those countries and bring them to a know-
ledge of the true faith and true Lord, and under the imperial
dominion, I have written this with much exactness ; and although
in it may be read things very novel and for some persons difficult
to believe, nevertheless they may without hesitation credit me as
strictly faithful. Better than to exaggerate, I have lessened in all
things, and it is sufficient to say the relation is offered to your Majesty
for truth. I beg it may be received in the name of homage, since it
is the most that one could bring who returned thence naked.