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Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/147

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THE NAME SAN JUAN DE ULUA.
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of human sacrifices. And here, beside evidences of heathen abominations in the forms of a great temple, idols, priests, and the bodies of two recently sacrificed boys, they had gnats and mosquitoes to annoy them, all which led them to consider the terror of their voyage and the advisability of return. Of the Indian, Francisco, Grijalva asked the significance of the detestable rite of ripping open living human bodies and offering bloody hearts to hungry gods; and the heathen answered, because the people of Culhua, or Ulua, as he pronounced the name, would have it so. From this circumstance, together with the facts that the name of the commander was Juan, and that it was now about the time of the anniversary of the feast of John the Baptist, the island was named San Juan de Ulua,[1] while the continent in that vicinity was called Santa María de las Nieves.

  1. To distinguish it, Herrera says, from San Juan de Puerto Rico. On the chart of Cortés, 1520, the B:. de Sant Juan is laid down, but no other names are given except that of Sacrificios Island, which is phiced some distance out and called Ys delta creficio. On Orontius' globe, 1531, three islands are called Insula Sacrifici. Colon lays down R: de s. Juhan; R. salado; R: de s. x pouae, (christobal); villa rica, and yeo: de sacreficios. Ribero designates R:. de s. Jua; R:, de cãpual; villa rica, and y:. a de sac'ficios. Vaz Dourado writes Ro. de Sälo (santo) Joáo (Juan); llaueracrus, (la vera cruz), and villa riqua (villa rica). Hood gives R. de medelin; S. Jon delua; Laueracruz; Sen Jual; Villa Rica; and marks the point south of Vera Cruz P. de antonisardo. Mercator gives Villa Rica; Ogilby, S. Juan de Luz, and north of it Villarica. On another of his maps we find S. Juan de Lua; Pta de Anto Sardo, I. y Fuerca de la vera Cruz neuva. La Vera Cruz, R. Medelin, and Yas de Sacrificios. See further Cartography North Am., MS., 1. 531. Las Casas confounds the islands Sacrificios and Ulua, calling them one. The Spaniards supposed the continent thereabout, far into the interior, was known to the natives as Culhua; hence we find Velazquez, in his instructions to Cortés, Mendoza, Col. Doc, xii. 227, speaking of 'una tierra grande, que parte della se llama Ulúa, que puso por nombre Santa María de las Nieves.' See also Oviedo, i. 539.