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After seven weeks, we landed in Cuba.

It was the feast of the Epiphany, fifteen hundred and nineteen. I had expected it to be winter, but the air was filled with the sweet scents of tamarind and jacaranda, hibiscus and bougainvillea. This was, indeed, a New World.

At noon the next day we met the Governor of the islands, Diego de Velázquez, who had been in these lands some five years. He bid us welcome and informed us that our arrival was timely: there was an expedition underway to discover new territories a few weeks hence, led by one Hernán Cortés.

Of good stature, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with fair, almost reddish hair, worn long and with a beard, Cortés possessed neither patience nor self-doubt. He determined to use my skills as a notary, and asked me to record every detail of his journey to the Americas, issuing declarations, recording confessions and sending accurate relaciones back to Spain. I would also be called upon to write out and proclaim new oaths of allegiance to Queen Doña Juana and her son, the Emperor Charles V, made by the caciques, or leaders, of the realms that we would surely conquer.

And so it was that on the tenth of February fifteen hundred and nineteen, just after Mass, I, Diego de Godoy, and my over-eager dog, Pedro the greyhound, boarded the lateen-rigged caravel San Sebastián and began to sail along the coast of Yucatán in the company of ten other ships under the leadership of the aforementioned Cortés. Diego de Velázquez attempted to recall us from the journey at the very last minute, questioning the legitimate authority of Cortés to colonise further lands without the consent of His Majesty, but our General was in no mood to turn back. The adventure had begun, and I now found myself in the company of friends upon whose abilities my life would come to depend: Antonio de Villaroel, the standard-bearer; Anton de Alaminos, the pilot; Aguilar, the interpreter; Maestre Juan, the surgeon; Andres Nuñez, the boat-builder; Alonso Yañez, the carpenter; together with some thirty-two crossbowmen, thirteen musketeers, ten gunners, six harquebusiers, two blacksmiths, and, to keep us hearty, Ortiz, the musician, and Juan, the harpist, from Valencia.