Alvar Cabeqa De Vaca (Nunez), a Spanish explorer, born about 1490, died in Seville in 1564. He was chief officer under Narvaez in the expedition to Florida in 1527-8 (see Narvaez, Pamfilo de), and after the shipwreck and death of the latter escaped with a few followers to the mainland somewhere W. of the mouth of the Mississippi. He travelled N. W. until he reached a mountainous country, believed to be New Mexico. Making friends of the In-dians by prescribing for their ailments, he remained with them eight months. Pursuing his journey in a southwesterly direction, after incredible hardships he at length reached the Spanish settlements on the Pacific coast in 1536, with only three surviving companions, having been eight years in crossing the continent. After his return to Spain, Nunez was appointed administrator of La Plata, and sailed for that colony at the end of 1540; but he was obliged by shipwreck to go to Paraguay, which country he first explored. Passing through the country of the Guaranis, and descending the Plata with their assistance, he reached Asuncion, where he established his headquarters, March 15, 1542. An insurrection broke out the following year, after a conflagration, Nunez being accused of leniency toward the native incendiaries; but he arrested the ringleaders and sent them to Spain. He subjugated the Payagoaes, a tribe on the shores of a lake which he called Rio Negro, who had killed Juan de Ayolas and 80 of his men; and exploring the river Iguayu, he reduced to subjection the Ya-guesses and Clanesses, and other tribes, taking possession of their territory in the name of Spain, He was repulsed however by the So-corines and Agaces, who killed 63 of his men; and falling sick, he was accused by his lieutenant Domingo de Irala and sent to Spain, where the council of the Indies condemned him to banishment to Africa. After eight years he was recalled by the king, who gave him a pension and appointed him judge of the supreme court of Seville, where he resided till his death.

The Naufragios de AIvar Nunez was published, together with his secretary Fernandez's Comen-tarios de Alvar Nunez, in Valladolid in 1544, and is included in Barcia's Hstoriadores primi-tivos de las Indias occidentales (Madrid, 1749). An abridgment of his narrative is contained in Hakluyt's " Voyages," and there is a French translation in the collection of voyages published in Paris by Ternaux-Compans, and an English translation with annotations by Buckingham Smith (Washington, 1851).