OCR Text |
Show 84 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN HISTORY THE Alvar Nufiez Cabeza de Vaca made his escape to the main land and, traveling for forty or fifty leagues along the coast and up into the interior among tribes who lived in the direction of the Red river of Louisiana, he began a traffic among the natives to whom he brought from the coast various kinds of shells, shell ornaments, and small shell beads, in exchange for which he obtained skins and ochre pigments, canes for arrows, flint heads, and tassels of the hair of the deer, dyed red. In this manner he became very well acquainted with the country. Every year he returned to the island, endeavoring always to persuade Oviedo to make his escape with him. The companion of Oviedo having died, these two left the island and traveled south, crossing four rivers, one of which emptied into the gulf; they came upon a bay a league in width, which was supposed to be the bay of Espiritu Santo. This bay they crossed in safety and, resuming their journey, they met some Indians of the Quevenes nation.** These told the two Spaniards that there were three for the four streams, ‘very large and of rapid current,’ one of which flowed directly into the gulf. Following the journey of the Spaniards from the island, down the coast, in April, when the streams were swollen by flood, the first river was crossed in two leagues after they had reached the main land. evidently Oyster creek. Three leagues farther was another river, This was running 80 powerfully that one of the rafts was driven to sea more than a league. This fully agrees with the Brazos, which indeed is the only large stream of the landlocked Texas coast that flows directly into the gulf. Four leagues still farther they reached another river, where the boat of the comptroller and the commares: was found. From this fact it may be assumed that this stream also owed into the open gulf, a condition satisfied by Caney creek. The San Bernardo may well have escaped notice in traveling near the coast from the fact that it flows into Cedar lake. Five or six leagues more brought them to ae river (the Colorado), which the Slime carried tinal across in a — they reached the bay of Espiritu Santo (La Vaca ee 9)" wer The a lin The side toward Panuco ay was broad, nearly a league across. a (the south out nearly a quarter of a league, having on ee W tdiiie j ) enna Waere pod white sand stacks which it is reasonable to suppose can be descried a ae sea, and ‘were consequently thought to mark the River we ter two days of exertion they succeeded in crossing the in a heavens aie bite eee a at the end of twelve leagues they came to a small e Se of a river. Here they found Figueroa, the only {Gh st Gas ; piritu Mee Esbay bay sur- The distance from es " ie had attempted to return to Mexico. Malhado an, leagues, consequently the journey from the Colorado to th as Ba than San Antonio other no be to seems which reached, oo thi bay,y» covered banie Sa to thirty-three leagues. Lofty sand dunes, ‘such as Ses He : “9 we regard as perhaps La Vaca bay, occur on San Antonio tted States Coast Survey Report for 1859, p. 325. The western shore of the bay i vest a singular wine is bluff or bank of twenty feet. The highest peak 18 about seventy-five Guevenes, in the edition of 15 “At one place on this side, FIRST SPANISH EXPLORERS 85 other of their people some distance beyond, the survivors of a considerable number, the others of the company having died of hunger, cold, or had been killed, and that the tribe that held them was treating them very harshly. The Indians, by way of demonstrating to Cabeza de Vaca and Oviedo the cruel manner in which the other Spaniards had been treated, and ‘‘that we might know what they told us of the ill usage to be true, slapped my companion and beat him with a stick, and I was not left without my portion. Many times they threw lumps of mud at us and every day they put their arrows to our hearts, saying that they were inclined to kill us in the way they had destroyed our friends.’’ Oviedo became very much frightened at these demonstrations of hostility and desired to return with the women who had come with him. Cabeza de Vaca did everything he possibly could to dissuade Oviedo from his purpose, but he returned with the women and was never heard of afterwards. Two days after Lope de Oviedo left, the Indians who had Alonzo del Castillo and Andrés Dorantes, came to the place of which he had been told, for the purpose of eating walnuts. An Indian told Cabeza de Vaca that the Christians were coming and said that if he wished to see them he should go to a certain wooded point, and as they came by he and his kindred proposed to visit the Indians and that he would take Cabeza de Vaca with him. The meeting between the Spaniards was a most joyful one, their They soon agreed upon a plan of escape, delight being mutual. which was to be carried out six months later when the band of Indians who had them as slaves went into another part of the country for the purpose of eating the fruit of the prickly pear. This — the Opuntia cactus— Cabeza de Vaca described as being fruit of the size of a hen’s egg, vermilion and black in color, and of agreeable flavor, and that the Indians subsisted upon it three months in Cabeza Dorantes were also the year. de Vaca was given to an Indian as his slave and to whom already belonged. The Indian was blind of one eye, as his wife and sons, and likewise another who was with him. with beenthe identic think S there isi reason to believe : that these peop le may 7 h ave ag in first al quarter es the Cohani, who lived west of the Colorado river of Tex of the nineteenth century. |