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Show 126 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN fA these streams are fordable during the winter months, and it was in fall and winter that the Spaniards performed their journey through Texas. In another place I have written as follows on this subject, and I have nothing to alter in the opinions there expressed: ‘They travelled five days, crossing a river ‘wider than the Guadalquivir at Seville,’ and quite deep. This was the Trinity. Three days’ march west of this river they began to see mountains, one range of which seemed to sweep directly northward. One day farther, or ‘five leagues farther on’ they reached another river ‘at the foot of the point where the said mountains commenced.’ That river was the Brazos, and by ‘mountains’ the hills of Central Texas must be understood. Cabeza de Vaca says he estimated the distance of these mountains from the sea to be fifteen leagues (forty miles). People from the coast came in one day to visit them. ‘*Here they changed their direction, and moved northwards along the base of a mountain chain and partly away from water-courses eighty leagues according to the joint report, fifty according to Cabeza de Vaca. The last estimate is more likely, for the journey was painful and slow, and they experienced great scarcity of food as well as of water. In this manner they reached the vicinity of Fort Graham. Here they chan . again. sunset 5 . ‘ S . ed th er route, making towards = pa eon agit in Mexico, and found no trace of the great quadrup ed » upon his return down the Rio , Pee os he saw large herd ee the latter stream. ee am. In 1590 G xaspar Castafio de Sosa marched arched the Pecos shod Upup the river Pesob ave gt' i Grande and he saw track 10 racks of the buffalo only on the 2 em a a” ee again followed the Rio Grande upwards pia a con ‘ tee distance below El Paso del Norte, N and saw 7 no trace of the buffalo ca ‘*In Naufrag an oo i Pp. slpert Y porque aquel rioi arriba mas de cincuenta leguas de ellas. Further on we find the following passage: alli estuvimos, determinamos de ir & buscar el maiz; camino de las vacas porque es hacia el norte esto gran rodeo.’ They therefore: followed the ae for se ays. ansl pasamos todasas las l lez s y di j de ellas atrevesamos el rio.’ ae Thi 18 Shows7 that theyee river oaon ee which were the 5 og ne i 7 as the one which the Spaniards followed. Historia 609: =. Rai 4 assi fueron por este rio ) arriba las n ueve i jorna : ta ainwae t la noche, con grandissima hambre.’ The nee eee tile 1em “que eran ydos 4a ¢ comer ] las vacas, | tres jornadas 8 entre las sierras que decian venian de arriba peaciaia ] la mar.’ : _t Themee plain (Sasba a uchas : : tin os dos dias que ~ juesimos seguir el <a ara oe cc : 7 ’ 0 Pahcut, and the others of that wil eee Rio Grande, south of the New Mex “Tn ] Conchos the Bin a : and ican e the Sierra Apache, Sierra Guadalupe, arid region between the Pecos and the boundary. ee pemnangs de Mendoza crossed over from the mouth of the Cos river, and on the 10th of January, t . rande, he saw the first y, ten days after leaving de los Rios y hasta el Rio de Pecos, Msn, fol $0? a >, Si , 3 *9 . . ‘i THE HISTORY at Viage & ta Junta ° FIRST SPANISH EXPLORERS 127 ‘‘Including prolonged stays among the Indian hordes, our Spaniards consumed nearly two months in these wanderings, so that it Guided was November when they began to move westward again. by sunrise and by sunset they consequently followed a line south of west, it being now late in the fall. The farther they advanced, They crossed the the greater became that southern deflection. Colorado, and finally struck a large river, to which they gave the name ‘Rio de las Vacas,’ or river of the Cows, since the buffalo herds were said to roam more than fifty leagues up the river. It ‘This is the last stream mentioned in either of the relations. was evidently the Rio Grande. ‘‘Here both reports become extraordinarily diffuse, although the joint narrative is less so than Cabeza de Vaca’s book, still, it is easily discernible that the Spaniards struck the Rio Grande without crossing the Pecos, therefore below or very near the mouth of the latter. Refusing to go due north where the cows were, they followed the The eastern bank for fifteen (Naufragios have seventeen) days. mountains were to the north, and during this tramp they suffered much from hunger. At the end of fifteen or of seventeen days, they crossed the river to the west. The distance from the mouth of the Pecos to Presidio del Norte (where the Rio Conchos empties into the Rio Grande) is about two hundred and fifty miles, a reasonable stretch for fifteen days of wearisome and difficult foot travel. I conclude, therefore, that they crossed the Rio Grande about Fort Seaton. Thereafter their route lay towards the sunset again, and no more water-courses are mentioned. That is, until they reached the banks of the Yaqui. ‘(In the sixteenth century, the buffalo never reached the shores of the Rio Grande del Norte. This seems to militate against the assumption that that river was the last stream which they met (of any importance) previous to their striking Sonora. But the text of both the main sources indicate that the cows were not on the river which they followed for about seventeen days. It is certain that they never saw the buffalo themselves, except Cabeza de Vaca, who saw them in the Red River country, but the Indians on the Rio Grande told them that they roamed ‘three days distance from there.’ It is well ascertained that the buffalo used to descend along the Pecos to near the mouth of that river. Therefore the Spaniards must have struck the Rio Grande a little below its junction with the Pecos and the reports which they gathered concerning the vicinity of the great quadruped applied to the Pecos, owing to the near proximity of both rivers, of which, however, they saw but the larger one. Furthermore, their journey up the many hardships, owing to the lack of food. river exposed them to The Indians-had hardly |