Vol. III. OCTOBER, 1899. No. 2.
The publication committee and the editor disclaim responsibility for views expressed by contributors to the Quarterly.
[It is apparent from Mr. Lewis's own statement in this number that the journal was not put into the form from which Colonel Bryan's copy was made until something more than fifty years after the events narrated; but it is said by Colonel Bryan to be quite faithful to the geography of the section of the Brazos country with which it deals, and to the names left there. It must, therefore, have been written from notes made earlier. What Lewis says relative to the daughters of Mr. Morton would indicate as much. Colonel Bryan has added some notes, to which are appended his initials.
Mr. L. G. Bugbee's estimate of the value of the journal is given in note 2 to his article, “What Became of the Lively,” printed in this number.
Mr. Lewis's initials have at last been obtained.—Editor Quarterly.]
The boat almost passed before those on board saw me, but when they did they appeared to feel equal satisfaction with myself. I was taken aboard and first inquired as to the success of the trip. Then what a change of feeling came over me! They did say I shed tears, and it was perhaps so. I answered their inquiries in monosyllables, but eventually I found utterance sufficient to say that the camp was only a mile or two away; that all were pretty well; that we had had a sore bad time of it; that the vessel never came back any more; that we stayed four or five days and then moved up by stations, bringing only the bedding, a kettle, and a frying pan; and that there were no provisions to bring but a peck of rice. They asked how we had all lived, and I answered that we had killed some game. They asked who killed it, and I said first one and then another. Then I added that Mr. Beard and Nelson would tell them all about it, and that we were almost there.
When we arrived I remarked that this was my camp, and that the other belonged to Beard and the balance. I told the Governor that in anticipation of their arrival I had a fine roasted turkey for them. Just then I got out of the boat at my landing, whereupon they all got out and fell to eating; for they had been on short allowance themselves and had a taste of what hunger is.
They reported that they had gone up for six days and could hear nothing of the land settlers. Little remarked that they heard the report of a rifle the day they started back. I said I should have known from whom it came, but I saw at a glance from the old Governor that this remark was not pleasing to him. He replied that they suspected they were Indians, and that it determined them to return as quick as possible. This was all gammon and soft soap. I had reason a short time after to believe that they had met with the settlers above, and that they could hear nothing of Colonel Austin. This intelligence would tend to dissatisfaction and discontent in the camp, and if it was known that a settlement was above us it might produce a stampede—particularly as the vessel had left us so unexpectedly, and that in a starving condition.
My mind was greatly exercised as to coming events with us. I, however, came to one conclusion, which was that my chance was better than most, and equally fair with the best. If I could keep my powder dry and my gun in order, I felt I could make the settlement at Nacogdoches if I could keep clear of the Indians.
Little and the old Governor gave our “steward and cook” a pretty sound lecture as to the prodigal use of the provisions, particularly the sugar, tea, and coffee, as these were intended for the sick; but it was now too late to cry.
In an hour or two it was decided to send the boat to the mouth of the river to see if the vessel had been back; as it had been agreed that either party was to leave some token if it returned and did not find the other. And it was determined that we should go to work and build boats (pirogues) and continue our route up the river. I was to go down with Little, the Governor, and three others of the men. I told the Governor that it was not right to work a free horse to death; that I thought I had done more than my share the last seven or eight days; that if it was necessary for me to be at the mouth of the river I would walk both ways; and that I was unwilling to be made a hand on the boat. A consultation was had, and they substituted our tall man, the New York engineer. They did not say whether I should go or not. I, however, put out, intending to capture a deer if possible, knowing they would be short of meat.
The river being very serpentine, I had no difficulty in keeping ahead of the boat, and occasionally sallied out to find a deer. I had nearly got to our hawk camp, when a turkey hen flew from the opposite side and dropped close to where I stood. I saw her start and prepared myself as she alighted. I fired and broke her thigh. She could not rise again for the high grass, but she gave me some trouble with her one foot and wings. She eluded me until I tired her out, she being very fat. The men in the boat, hearing the report of my rifle, stopped rowing and got out on the bank, where I was, not one hundred yards from them.
We soon got to the mouth of the river, but found no evidence of the “Lively,” so we put in a load to return.
I had seen among the drift the bow and some six feet of what appeared to be a small canoe of black walnut. This I saw on our first leaving the vessel, and I had some little trouble to locate the place, but eventually found it. I was unable to learn much more about it, except that it had a crack or split in the bottom. How much more it was damaged I did not know, for the rest of it was under drift wood and sand. I, however, resolved to keep my own counsel, as I did not know what my individual necessities might become.
Hearing a pistol shot that I supposed was intended to warn me, I started back. I only crossed to the east side. The current was strong, as the tide was ebbing, and they determined to await the return tide, for the boat was pretty well loaded. So we built a big fire in our old camp and remained until about two o'clock. Then with a strong tide current we made good headway and reached the camp by twelve o'clock. But this was only a beginning in boating up. The next trip was for axes, saws, augers, and in fact all that we might need.
It now became necessary to send some of the party in search of timber suitable to build boats. We were about ten or twelve miles from the mouth of the river, and the largest growth of cotton-wood appeared to be on the opposite, or west, side. The men we sent out reported finding what would answer some three miles higher up; so those who did not go back with the boat went to carrying what was here up to the opposite side, where we were to establish a boat building yard.
I soon saw my place. It was in the occupation of hunter with Stephen Holston, Jacky Lovelace, and Beddinger. Mr. Harrison, who, though he had a fine gun, had no experience in the woods, was supernumerary. At first, for four or six days, we had no difficulty in keeping meat ahead, always drying when we had a surplus. The negro boy, William, the servant of Harrison, did nothing but jerk and take care of the excess. This was generally of venison, but occasionally there were three or four turkeys, which were usually barbecued. In this condition they would not spoil.
About this time the men had finished boating up all they had to bring, even tools for farming, grub and weeding hoes, cane knives, etc. I turned loose about my drift canoe, and desired the use of the boat and two hands to go and examine it. Little was not in favor of this, but the old Governor approved it; and I took Mattigan and the other Irishman—Gibson, I think, was his name—and invited Mr. Jacky to go also, for I rather suspected that Little was afraid to trust me and the men with the boat, fearing that we might turn runaways.
Well, we started them down, and we took the land to try to kill something on the way, which Mr. Jacky did a short way below our camp on the bayou. As the boat had passed down, we carried the deer between us to the next bend below, where we intercepted the party, got in, and went on, leaving Mattigan and Gibson to skin and hang up the vension and to build a good fire.
We had a grub hoe, hand saw, axe, and spade. We took the spade and grub hoe and went a half mile, rather on the outside of the drift, when we reached the canoe. We soon cleared away one side and the inside and found the boat sound, but there was a large split from one edge running five or six feet rather towards the other end and from the top to nearly the bottom. Mr. Jacky said that was easily doctored if nothing was worse. We now tried to examine the bottom and the other end, but it was covered with a drift of large logs. We went for water and something to eat and returned with the others and the tools, i. e., the axe and saw. We commenced getting away the drift and sand and expected to find the boat rotten, for it looked as though it might have been there half a century. We found it a little tender where the sand had covered it, but Mr. Jacky said it would soon harden when exposed to the air and sun. The bottom was open for ten feet. It looked like a sun crack. Mr. Jacky said the boat was a great prize, worth to us now its weight in gold. We continued our unearthing till near night. We were a little dubious about trying to move the boat, and concluded it was better to leave it to dry and harden a little as we had plenty of time. Mr. Jacky said he expected that we should be building boats two or more weeks. He said we must clear away all the sand from the canoe that we could, but that we could do this in the morning while Mattigan cooked us a little meat.
Before starting back we found in the morning that the boat had dried very much, and we went to work to relieve it of the rest of the sand in and around it. When we had finished Mr. Jacky took his knife and went to where the most decayed part appeared to be and cut out a chip from the side and found the wood quite sound under one-fourth of an inch of the decayed outside. Then he pronounced it all right.
We started back, and he and I got out near and opposite the old bayou camp, as I told him that we, not being able to cross, had not disturbed anything on this, the west, side of the river. Now we were about three miles from the boat yard. We diverged a little from the river and came to a lagoon, which ran in a parallel line with it. We followed the margin of the upper end of the lagoon. All at once Mr. Jacky stopped short. I was twenty or more yards behind him. He placed his finger on his lips. I knew the import—silence. I looked around expecting to see him prepare to shoot, and trying to find the object. He perceived my perplexity and beckoned me to him, admonishing me by signs to make no noise. He only pointed to the soft mud and water which showed recent tracks of buffalo. Though they were the first I had ever seen, I knew at a glance what it meant. He told me in a whisper to note whether I could hear or see anything. After a half minute I shook my head. He signaled me to be still where I was and started, as I saw, to ascertain the probable number, and to see whether they were feeding or on the tramp. I was a little curious to see what he intended to do. He turned direct to the river and said, as if to himself, we have the wind of them. Then I hurried to camp, and soon I saw the Governor, Holston, and Mr. Harrison in full preparation. The men at work were on the point of falling a large cotton-wood, when they were stopped, to make as litte noise as practicable. I did not know if I was to be one of the party or not at the time. I was very anxious to see a buffalo, not to speak of seeing one killed.
We arrived at the place and immediately started on trail of the buffaloes, though it was evident that they were at feed. I heard the old Governor whisper to Mr. Jacky that in all probability they were lying down. He, Mr. Jacky, and Holston went some thirty yards ahead of us, but very noiselessly. They had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile, when as well as we could see they both squatted down to prime afresh. Very soon Mr. Jacky raised up his rifle and fired. We remained still until beckoned up. The old Governor said in his usual tone, “He has one.” * * * 1
I think we were the best part of three days in packing and jerking the meat of the buffalo for after use. It gave considerable relief to the hunters, though we occasionally killed a deer or turkey, as they were very plenty and not very wild; but we perceived after a week or two that they were getting scarce for a mile or so near the camp.
It was now a good time to get help to bring my canoe up. I mentioned it to Mr. Jacky, and we went down again, taking Thompson, the carpenter, and my long engineer, Nelson, and Beddinger. We found the boat quite dry and got it out on the beach. Thompson and Nelson went in search of something to splice the bottom with. They found the blade of an old flat boat steering oar, but it took as much work and trouble to get it out as the canoe. Mr. Jacky called us to him some distance out from the drift. He had found what he said looked like burnt tar or pitch. The mass was two and a half feet in diameter and three or four inches thick. As it lay in the cold it was quite hard, but a little flexible. Mr. Jacky got off a small particle and took it to the fire. “By Jo,” he exclaimed, “it is very like good pitch, except the smell.” It was what we afterwards learned to be coal bitumen. The discovery was most opportune, for we were in want of the very article. Our whale boat or yawl was getting to leak badly, and our new found old canoe could not well be made available without a good coat of pitch.
We now made preparations to start up to camp. Our first attempt was to put our canoe athwart the middle of the yawl, but we found this would not do. The canoe was twenty or twenty-five feet long, and one end or the other would get in the water. We then made it fast to the stern and towed it up—a slow, slow, tedious operation.
We brought the oar blade, cutting it in lengths to go into the yawl. Mr. Thompson and Beddinger went to work on the canoe and in two days had put in a splice some six or seven inches wide in the bottom, and with the aid of part of an old tin bucket that had been mashed they got means to do up the fracture in the side to above the water mark. After the application of our bitumen it turned out to be a sung, very light boat. In consequence of the help afforded by the bitumen, one other of the new pirogues was widened in like manner to a canoe. Finding that the red elm, which grew quite large, would split like an acorn, we got out a slab and inserted it, making room for a greater quantity of freight. The yawl was also repaired, and things began to look like a move.
I think we were boat building near three weeks. This brought us into about the first week of February. We commenced one morning to load and found something was to be gone after which had been left. So Mr. Little and four men went down and returned late in the evening, having picked up some recruits at the mouth of the river. They brought back with them a party consisting of an old man named Fitzgerald, his son, a man named Frazer, a negro woman, and an old but active negro man. They were from the Calcasieu, and were in one of the largest and finest pirogues we had ever seen. It was all of forty feet long, and wide enough to roll a large barrel from one end to the other. It also had a middle piece put in the whole length. Fitzgerald and his party were rejoiced to see our boat come down, for he had made up his mind to await some further information or an additional escort for fear of the Indians. I mention the particulars relative to this boat, as it was destined to be a help thereafter. It had very little freight aboard, and it helped us out, as our four boats and the canoe and yawl were likely to be too heavy loaded for comfort and good speed.
The old Governor had had a comfortable seat put in the canoe, and he decided to take me and Beddinger in to work it. We had nothing in it except the cooking utensils and water buckets and any meats left over from the last breakfast. Our boat was always to be the advance, chosen perhaps on account of my accuracy in shooting, as I was put in the bow. The work was a light one to keep ahead of the fleet. Of a morning we frequently would get two or three miles ahead in order to get out of the reach of the noise in the camp for the night, so that by slipping easily along we would be able frequently to catch some game on the bank, for it soon got so that if we killed nothing we would have no breakfast next morning.
Our progress was very slow, hardly twenty miles a day, and we had quite a week's rain soon after starting. So far we had been fortunate in killing something to live on each day; but we missed part of two days and had to call a halt to hunt. My partner, Beddinger, had missed killing a fine deer, right in the sight of us all, shooting not thirty yards. This put old Fitzgerald in a pucker, and when we again started, lo and behold, to our surprise, he put out under full headway before us. We had killed several deer on our hunt, but at night old Fitz stopped a quarter above us. His boat was light, and he could run around our boat three or four times in the mile. Well, next morning he was out and gone, so we again went out to hunt and did not get off until later. We again started, and not half a mile off saw some one waiting for us. Our boat came up, and we found none but Frazier; so we went on until night, when Fitzgerald came up. The men swore he should not pass, and a compromise resulted. He was to take one day, or until he had killed, and then to give us the run.
We were very lucky on our day, Holston having killed two, and Beddinger and Harrison killing two turkeys; so we gave him the balance of the day; but the next he was not to be seen, and also the next. We were again compelled to stop a half day, and at night no news of old Fitz. Next morning we were under way, and about nine o'clock we passed around a point, when here came the big pirogue with “a bone in the mouth;” and as he passed us he said “Indians! Indians!! boys,” and never stopped till he fell in at the bottom of the fleet, now three hundred yards long. The old Governor ran up to the bar, and we all got together. On inquiry, Fitzgerald said they were in the bend on the other side. We started, keeping well together. We went, I suppose, a mile, and sure enough we saw two wigwams, but there was not an Indian to be seen. After a little consultation it was determined to go over. We got out and went into the huts. In the largest one we found two bows and a sack of headed arrows; in the other there was nothing. It seemed to be deserted. We left a carrot of tobacco and a tin cup and went on our way.
We were never afterwards troubled by Fitzgerald about a division of the hunting days. Our days became a monotony, a sameness, one day with another, except perhaps in two instances.
In one of these instances I was lost for a day and night. We had stopped to hunt about three in the evening. It was quite cloudy. I started down the margin of the river. A large cane brake was on the other side of me to my left. I had proceeded for a mile or so looking for an outlet into the bottom. I at length found an opening and had left the river perhaps half a mile, when I saw a small yearling doe and shot it. It ran fifty or sixty yards and fell. There was a great sameness in the woods. I went to work and prepared my little deer for carrying back to camp, but I was seized with a little touch of vertigo, or a swimming of the head, brought on by my continued stooping. I started off as I supposed towards the river, keeping the heavy cane to the right. I saw from the distance I had gone that I was not right. I wandered about for an hour. It had set in raining and appeared to be getting towards night. I began to make up my mind that I would have to spend the night in the woods.
I had now reached the prairie and struck a deer path, and soon to my consternation I came upon a very recent camp made by Indians. I found in one place where the ground was a little soft a spot where I could detect in some measure the number and kind. I found the tracks of two or three children, several half grown girls or women, and two or three warriors. So I was a little relieved, as they were on the tramp to other localities, perhaps leaving the upper region where were our land immigrants.
I went along looking for a suitable tree to make my bed on for the night. I found a live oak which promised a good seat, and it was not hard to get into its branches, for many of its limbs were half as large as the main trunk. The set of limbs was ten or twelve feet from the ground, but a small red elm answered for a ladder. My next trouble was to start a fire. But the things were damp! I succeeded and made a big fire by the side of a fallen hackberry and took off one of the ribs of my deer and put it to roast. Well, my appetite was very keen. I did not wait to do the cooking thoroughly. While, however, my meat was being cooked I went up the tree with my gun and selected my roosting place. I took the balance of the little deer, and, making a fork on one of the saplings, hung it up by its hamstring as high as I could reach; for I knew the wolves would scent out the fresh blood. Then I took my rib and went to roost. The wolves or a tiger were all that I feared. The smell of fresh blood would attract them.
It soon became dark, and very dark. The rain had ceased a little. I was pretty well located, having a large limb for my seat, which grew, as most of the lower limbs of the live oak grow, nearly at right angles from the body or stem; and on top of the elm I had a resting place for my feet, as also a convenient limb behind me to rest my back when I wished to change my position. Tying my gun to one of the limbs for fear I might let it fall and get broken, and putting my Scotch cap over the lock to keep it dry, I soon found myself feeling a disposition to nod.
But in an hour or so I was aroused from this state, as I heard at no great distance a whimper and then a hideous howl of a wolf, and then another and another until the dark woods appeared a howling wilderness. This did not alarm me in the least, for I knew them of old, having had a full lesson of the like in my native barrens of Kentucky. It was not long until I heard them growling and snapping at each other near my hung up balance of the little deer. They after a while became partially silent. I supposed the master of the crowd succeeded in getting part of it down, as I heard a scrambling, snapping, and pulling, as if three or more might have a hold on it, for they had scuffled off from the place where it was hung up. Soon I presumed that they had finished this piece, for a renewal took place for the balance, being perhaps the hind quarters, which put it nearly out of their reach, as many a jump was unsuccessful. About this time I think they had an accession to their party in the shape of a tiger. His keen olfactory nerves brought him into the ring. It took but a little while for him to get down sufficient to satisfy him, and, cat-like, he then coiled himself down to sleep. I thought he had left, as I could see or hear nothing; but when daylight appeared there he was in a sound sleep. I was a little at a loss what was best to be done. I anticipated his making off if he should hear my voice and get a scent of me. I was a little dubious as to the propriety of shooting him, on account of the report of my gun, should Indians be in hearing; but my first idea was amply sufficient, as the wind had shifted and was blowing towards him. My loud cough and halloo started him to his feet, and immediately off he went to the cane.
I was not long getting out of my bed, as the wind had appeared to be coming from the north. I thought it in my favor. I wished to go west, but this cane brake was in the way, and it was a wet job to go through after the rain. I put out in a long stride after examining my gun, priming it afresh. After going a mile or two, I come all at once to a place that I recognized as one I had passed the evening before. I now kept my course from the wind. I had struck a prairie, and, still keeping my course, I eventually came upon a flag pond with but little water. Here I was bothered a little. I detected a flat which looked as though it might be a drain in a wet season to carry off the surplus water, which must empty into a larger stream, or the river. But there were more than one. This one ran a hundred or so yards and emptied itself into the swamp. Seeing a row of water flags off to my right, I went and found a dry looking lagoon. I went on and followed it, and thought it might empty itself into the pond; but as it appeared to favor my idea and course I determined to see the end. My idea now was to try to find which way it emptied itself. I saw one place where I thought the drift indicated that I was going down it, and soon I thought it deepened; and by and by I found that it was a bayou. But was it to empty into the river? In half a mile further I saw the appearance of timber, and a little further on I detected now and then some stunted bunches of cane, and soon a stiff cane brake on both sides, and then I found what I needed very much, some water in a hole.
On the next turn of the bayou, just around the point, I discerned three deer after water. There was now a necessity for me to shoot one, as I had none of my little deer left. They were in the shade, and one had lain down. I killed one, and to my great joy and surprise the report of my gun was answered below me a half mile or so. I went two hundred yards and saw the river. I built a good fire and then went and took the entrails from my deer. Then I returned to the river, as they had arrived and were hallooing for me. They commenced with a good many questions, which I interrupted by asking if they had any cold meat. They had killed nothing, the rain having driven the deer into the prairie. I was asked what I shot at, and I told them if two of them would go two hundred yards to a hole of water they would find a fine large buck. . . . . . The deer was brought, and a good part cooked and eaten. The old Governor said the Indian sign was made by those of the wigwam we passed.
We now made another start, Mr. Holston occupying my seat in the little boat. It had been given to Beddinger, but he had missed killing two deer and a turkey, and Mr. Holston was in charge. I told the old Governor that he had better retain Mr. Holston as perhaps a better and older hunter than I. Mr. Jacky said it was best that I take the old seat, as I was quicker than anyone he ever saw, and that he believed I had not missed but once or twice on the route. Nothing of interest occurred, except now and then a deer or turkey was taken. . . . . 2
Two days and a half brought us to our stopping place. Now I have never since visited that part of Texas, and do not know what name was given to it. Let me describe it, and locate landmarks that must still exist, though it has now been just about fifty-two years since I was there. Our landing was made on the west side of the river, where the prairie came right up to the bank, forming a bluff, and being the only high land that had reached the river on either side. There was a vacancy of timber of perhaps a mile or more on the river bank. The alluvial low land sloped off on the lower end or south gradually from the prairie to the timber and heavy cane brakes. At or near the upper termination of the prairie, and perhaps a little way into the woods or timber, a singular phenomena (if it might be called so) was a deep cañon, bayou, or ditch. A half mile from the mouth it was forty or more feet wide. The sides were quite perpendicular, and it was nearly or quite twenty feet deep. It extended two or three miles at right angles to the river to the west, the river here being north and south. The prairie was quite level for miles around. . . . 3
There was but one crossing on the cañon for two or more miles. It connected with the river through a point or strip of timber. Now a little above this was the lower end of the only “falls” of the river that we noticed. At the head of the “falls” and a little above, the river made a considerable detour to the west, and then a half mile, and it turned back perhaps twenty-five degrees north. The “falls” were not passable in low water with a yawl or skiff without the help of a line. It seems to me there must have been a fall of four feet in the hundred yards. The opposite land, or east side, was heavy cane brake, in which a Mr. Morton made a clearing in the spring of '22. 4
Mr. Little commenced putting up a log cabin, say twenty or twenty-five feet square, the men carrying the logs from the land below us. This occupied all the force, but as soon as all the heavy timber had been brought up and the house was built, which occupied some ten or twelve days, part of the hands were selected to return to the mouth of the river, in expectation of meeting the Lively, or at least finding supplies, as originally stipulated. It was now late in March. We took the yawl and Fitzgerald's big pirogue. Our company consisted of the two Lovelaces, Mr. Holston, Mr. Harrison, his boy William, the engineer Nelson, — Williams, Mr. Wilson, and myself—fourteen in all, some of whom I don't now recollect.
The only thing occurring on the way down happened the third day out, when we supposed we had made three-fourths of the trip. About nine or ten o'clock we came upon a lot of Indians of all sorts and sizes, with as many dogs apparently as Indians. They were in the bend on the east side, and so soon as we rounded the point they were all on the bank awaiting us. There were some nine or ten warriors. The balance to the number of perhaps twenty-five or thirty were boys, women, and children. One old man, who looked to be sixty or seventy, advanced to the water's edge, hallooing at the top of his voice, with demonstrations with hands and arms, “Here, here, white man. Here, white man.” We, however, got out on the sand bar on the opposite side and all went to loading and examining our guns, when the Governor, Jacky, and Harrison, after placing us in along so as to cover them if hostile demonstrations were shown. 5 The old chief spoke Mexican, and our Mr. Harrison had a smattering of the Spanish, so we got some information from the Indian, for we did not yet know the name of the river. He said it was “Brazos de Dios,” and mentioned the Colorado, pointing to the west and clapping his hands open four times, which we put down as meaning a four days' journey, or forty miles. They were traveling in that direction.
We reached the mouth of the river the next evening, but no vessel, no news of any kind. Nothing had been disturbed since we left. Here was a poor disheartened set of men. We had prepared ourselves a ittle better with hooks and lines, as Mr. Harrison and Mr. Lovelace had them in their satchels when they went up the river the first time, and we could catch all the fish we wanted, both the red at night, and blue cat in the morning. We determined to remain several days, hoping to intercept some sail or other, or hear some news.
The third day early in the morning a yawl arrived, having on board a Mr. Morton, his son, a boy seventeen years old, and a negro boy of about the same age. Mr. Morton informed us that he started from Mobile in a schooner of his own with his family, consisting of his wife, a step-daughter, Miss Jane Edwards, a son called Tilly, and three daughters of perhaps thirteen, eleven, and seven or eight years old, whose names I do not recollect. He stated that he made the island in a storm, and attempted to land after missing the entrance to Galveston Bay. The wind blowing a heavy gale from the southeast, he went ashore just above the pass of the west end. All were saved. The two sailors took the other boat and went to the east end, now Galveston. He saved all he could from the wreck. He said he had come in search of help and had left his wife and four daughters alone on the island.
We immediately volunteered to give him help. So three went on our yawl in company of Mr. Morton. Five of us were to go in the big pirogue as soon as they got back with it, some of the men having gone up the river in it to hunt. They returned late in the evening; so Wilson, Mr. Williams, Thompson, Nelson, and myself fixed up to go early in the morning. I expected to go in the stern, but was over-ruled, and they put Nelson in to manage the boat. It was a godsend that the tide was on the swell, i. e., coming in as we shoved off. It was observed that the wind from the south had freshened up in going a hundred yards or so. I remonstrated that the surf was rising, but Nelson paid no attention to what was said until the boat began to catch water in her bow. I ordered the oars on the starboard to cease and tried to get her around, but too late. The next two or three swells filled her, then every one for himself. Poor Mr. Thompson sank as she turned upside down, and I think he immediately drowned. Williams, poor fellow, being a good swimmer, left the boat and nearly reached the shore, but went under. The other two kept by accident on the lee side of the boat, for it was going sidewise before the wind, and with a strong incoming tide. I had slipped back, being on the same side, and losing my position on the boat had dropped astern a little, when I observed the stern line. I made for it and succeeded in getting it. It was of sufficient length to pass it under my arms and take a round turn, and I so held it always after a wave had passed over me, as to haul myself up as close as I could to the boat, only holding on to the slack with one hand, as the surge of the boat was getting too much for me. In this way we three reached a point where we could touch bottom, but were too weak to get out alone, and though not twenty feet from the dry beach would have drowned, but the wind shifted to the left and lulled until the sea was as smooth as a piece of glass.
A second call for volunteers was made, and soon four offered themselves. I was appealed to, and I replied that I would again try it if Nelson would keep out of the stern and the pirogue would keep close to the shore. If this had been done in the morning those poor fellows would have been still living. Mr. Jacky agreed to go in the stern. So about 12 o'clock at night we reached the west end. Not seeing any one, we kindled a fire and lay down to rest. When I awoke I found the old lady and her four children and some eatables for us, and it was very acceptable, for it was the first bread and salt we had tasted for three months.
As the boats were to return for the balance of what we could take up the river, and the family were to go, I remained with one or two others, as it gave more room in the boat. Mr. Morton said that he had observed on going around the island the previous day a fresh horse track . . . , and proposed that we should see if we could find it. We started, taking each a little different direction, and agreeing to meet at a certain point and report. I reached the designated place ready to report seeing plenty of fresh sign; but, as I thought, only of one and the same animal. Not seeing or hearing anything of Mr. Morton, I made my way to the wreck and found him there. He stated that he had seen the horse, a small clay-bank, and said that he was not by any means wild, for he let him go within twenty feet of him, but had no disposition to be taken. He proposed to crease him by shooting him through the leaders and muscle of the neck, which he said might be done without much injury. . . . 6Mr. Morton said he did not think he was accurate enough to try it himself. He had a fine little rifle, carrying a ball of small buckshot size. We started to find the horse again, and he suffered us to get within fifteen or twenty feet. Morton told me to try it, and gave me his gun. I got the horse's side to me, and I succeeded, but shot him a little too far back, cutting the edge of the shoulder. I made him fast with a piece of cord. He soon recovered and got up, but limped. We were fearful that he was materially injured, but it did not prove to be so. He recovered entirely in a week or so, leaving only the scar of the bullet.
I now told Mr. Morton that he must assume the capture and ownership of the horse. He stoutly demurred. I explained to him how I stood in the company as an immigrant. I was not bound, as the balance were, by signing a compact or obligation. From some cause Colonel Austin had never presented it or spoken to me about it, and neither did either of the Messrs. Lovelace or Mr. Jennings sign it. Mr. Little and Beard on one or two occasions rather intimated that my services belonged to the company, and that I was as much subject to Little's orders as any of the others. It occurred in this way: at our first locating we, i. e., the hunters, had no difficulty in finding and killing plenty of meat, but by the time we had been three or four weeks there game got scarce for two or three miles from our location. The killing was an easy job, as deer and turkeys were very plenty, but the carrying in was a heavy, onerous job. Once or twice I had to leave some in the woods or prairie, because the burden was more than I thought my share. Well, it ended in some short words and replies. Beard knew how I had obtained my gun, and proposed to take it by force. Now to Mr. Morton I said I did not know how far they might go, and they might claim the horse on the same grounds. This was my reason for his entire ownership of the horse.
The animal was very tractable and gentle, and I swam him by the side of one of the boats across the mouth of the outlet at the west end of the island. He swam some hundred yards or so and then gave up. He went the balance of the way on his side, I now think near a quarter of a mile.
The boats were packed and loaded with the old lady and the youngest little girl on board. The balance except the boatmen, three for each boat, all took the beach; for it was a beautiful level, hard road, except that here and there a lagoon was to cross. I had our pony prize in charge. We made the trip down to the month of the river in good time without an accident. As I had to make my way by land I prepared a species of pad for a saddle. I found the pony needed no tying up, for so long as he had a halter or rope on he would not leave.
The crowd got ready in a day or two, Mr. Morton caçhing and hiding what he could not then carry up, and the balance of the boys catching and cooking fish for the start. I got on pretty well except crossing the bayous and lagoons, many of which I had to ascend a mile or two before being able to cross, as most of them were boggy with perpendicular banks. I was struck and pleased with one trait in our horse. I left him standing on the bank and went some distance up to look for a crossing, and found one. To my surprise he was on the bank above me. I crossed on some drift, and had not got over when he came down a bank five or six feet high and over through mud and water belly deep, as much as to say that he was not to be left. I generally killed something every day. Mr. Morton had a tin horn, and we could always meet at night. When I killed a deer or turkey I took it ahead of them to some open place on the bank and hung it up. Game, except turkeys, began to leave the swamp and hunt for the young prairie grass. The only thing of note from now up was the finding of a bee tree but a short distance from the river. It was in a small, dead elm, only about a foot or fifteen inches through, but it had a good deal of honey, the tree being hollow for six or eight feet. We got all the honey. We camped one hundred yards above the tree, it being late in the evening before the honey could all be taken.
In a day or two afterwards we arrived at our destination. I had anticipated, of course, hearing from, or learning the whereabouts of, Colonel Austin and his friends; but not a word. My disappointment and chagrin bore heavy on me. I let down so much that every one noticed it.
On our last trip down we had met a boat some ten miles from camp containing four men coming to join our immigrant party. It consisted of an elderly man by the name of Styner, his two sons, and one other whose name I never knew. They were from Newtown on the Teche. They had located in a canebrake a mile or so below us or below where we had put up the cabin, where Little had planted his patch of corn in the edge of the prairie, and where he had made little or nothing, at it was too late and the drought set in. Mr. Morton located at the other extreme of the prairie in the edge of the timber on the river and below the cañon or gulch heretofore alluded to. He, however, went into a canebrake on the opposite side of the river to open a patch. 7
I, however, was daily more discontented at my situation and condition. As Mr. Morton's camp, which was mine when I came in from a hunt, was some distance from Little's, or the main camp, which I never visited, I of course knew very little of what was going on there. I, however, found out that the Messrs. Lovelace, Holston, Harrison, and Mr. Jennings had disappeared. This induced me to believe that they had heard or knew more than they had said anything about. I found that they had taken one of the boats and the little canoe and left for the settlements above. It was now late in June, and upon this information I determined to seek an opportunity to return to the States. I had been appealed to by Mattigan and his Irish friend to go through by land, they offering to carry all I had if I would go. This I peremptorily refused, at the same time withholding from them or anyone else my intention of going.
My almost perpetual absence in the prairies kept me ignorant as to the passing up and down of immigrants. On the present occasion I had gone up the river and had been out a day or two, camping at night on the bank. Early one morning a boat, a fine, large, new skiff, came up the river and halted at my little camp; and when they came up the bank who should I meet but a man named Addison Harrison, whom I knew from boyhood in Kentucky. They spent part of the morning with me, as I had part of a fresh deer on hand. Here was my chance to get back. Harrison was very much pleased with the Brazos, and said he had determined to go back and move direct. He had with him a school-mate of mine, a Mr. Grandison Alsbury, a man by the name of Tadlock, and a doctor whose name I have lost, with a mulatto boy. On informing him of my intention and desire to return to the States he was greatly pleased, as I had had some little experience on salt water. They had come to the island and gone over the bay to the San Jacinto and Buffalo Bayou. They there learned that it was practicable to coast it back to the United States, and into the Vermilion or Berwick Bay. He said he did not intend to advance much further up the river, and would return in three or four days, or at furthest a week, and would stop for me. This arrangement suited me, as I had but little preparation to make. I told him I had a small trunk, two feet square, with but little in it. Of what clothing I had had, there was but little left me, the trunk having been long before broken open and pillaged of its contents.
Some time about the 20th or 25th of August, Mr. Harrison and party stopped early one morning. I took my trappings to the boat and advanced to Mr. Morton's tent and informed him of my intention to return to the United States. He of course was a little surprised, but said he thought it best for me; that my prospect was a glooomy one here as things had turned out.
I will here remark that Mr. Morton was a brickmaker and mason. I mention this, as it may lead to some information or identification, as the three girls of his family are not yet old, and they can possibly be traced out and identified. The son, “Tilly,” I think perhaps died that fall. 8
We immediately put away for the mouth of the river. The next day we discerned a bunch of some eight or more deer on the beach. They were easy of approach, as they, I presume, had not apprehended any danger from the river. Mr. Harrison took his rifle and picked his choice, killing a fine five-prong buck. His adroitness and activity in getting it a hundred yards into the boat was amusing. I supposed he was bringing it whole to the boat to skin and dress it; but, to my surprise, he and the men that went after it put it into the boat. He said he had not come to Texas to be scalped by Indians.
We reached the mouth in a day of two, for we went all night, and with the river a little on the swell we made railroad time. Our wish was to barbecue what we could of the deer as the best guarantee to save it. We reached the west end; and, as Mr. Harrison had promised to return by the San Jacinto and report to some of his friends and immigrants the success of his trip, as the schooner 9 had to make some repairs before proceeding on her voyage to the mouth of the Rio Grande, and as the captain was down with fever, we saw we should not leave for three weeks.
We started early in the morning and steered a northeast course, which Mr. Harrison assumed to be the direction of the mouth or confluence of the bay and the San Jacinto. We worked all day, having some trouble with reefs and oyster banks. In the morning we could see nothing but a waste of water, having had a light north wind all night. I had never been on or across the bay, and began to be a little skeptical as to our success; but about twelve o'clock I observed a change in the color of the water, and on testing it I found it less salt than it had been. This encouraged us, and our oars bent more readily to the new impulse, the water increasing in freshness, and the color becoming more turbid. Soon, at a distance of some four or more miles, we sighted the long looked for top of the mast of the schooner.
Many of Mr. Harrison's friends and others who were anxious for his return had gone on an excursion to the settlement on the Trinity, so he concluded to go and meet them. He asked me to go also. I told him I would rather go up the bayou—afterwards called Buffalo Bayou—to try and kill some meat, as we were getting short, and the captain of the schooner asked us a dollar a pound for anything he could spare—bacon, sea or pilot bread, sugar, coffee, or rice. In the morning we fixed up to prospect the bayou. Tadlock, Alsbury, and two of the men from the other camp offered to go also. One of the men said he had been up some ten miles, and that the whole bottom was subject to overflow, and was then so muddy and boggy from recent rains that he and his companions could go nowhere. They saw nothing, nor the sign of anything. We, however, went up. Having no current to contend with, we made good headway, and when I supposed we had advanced some twelve miles we concluded to prospect; for it appeared to me that the land was higher out from the bayou, and we could occasionally see signs of deer, as though they came for water. 10
Mr. Harrison had now been gone five days, and we were anxious for his return. He came the following day, and his surprise was considerable to see the improvement in our outfit. I rehearsed our adventure up the bayou. I told him that I found it as wide twelve or fifteen miles up as here at the mouth; that its direction was nearly west, and its course not very serpentine; and that my impression was that its extreme source could not be very for from the Brazos, and I thought the time would come when the navigation of the Brazos would be through this bayou by the aid of a canal into and through the bay, via Galveston into the Gulf. But railroads have knocked this idea into pi.
Mr. Harrison and his party got in about ten in the morning. I supposed he would be for making a start immediately. When I went to talk to him he was making up a little lost sleep. We, however, went to work, and were packing away things in the boat, which would have to be done. The captain of the first schooner came to our boat, and we told him we were preparing to leave. He told us that he would be off the next day or the day following. When Mr. Harrison came down I told him about the schooner's determination to leave, and said as we did not know enough of the route it would be well for us to wait and go out at the same time. So things remained in statu quo.
The second morning we filled two demijohns, which we had procured, with San Jacinto water, and followed the schooner, which had already entered the bay and struck for the island. We had a fair west breeze coming on our starboard side. Our new sail did very well. It was too large for the skiff in an ordinary stiff breeze, but we had the advantage of being able to lessen its size by reefing it to the mast.
The next day we took our departure from the island eastward up the gulf beach. We encountered no serious difficulty, except being compelled on two occasions to beach our boat on account of heavy north and north-west winds, to prevent its being carried out into the gulf.
We reached the opening of the Vermilion Bay, through which we intended crossing. We did so, but not with our consent as to the manner and speed with which we were compelled to travel. It was near or after sunset that we entered. We had been hurrying all we could to make the entrance of the bay, as we saw a heavy south-east cloud gathering. We passed the west end or point of the bay without observing anything like a shelter or harbor for us, and as far as we could see east a like disappointment met our eager expectation. But the storm rapidly approached. I at once realized our peril, and made up my mind to an early watery grave. All hands realized our perilous condition. How very incompetent I am to give anything like a description of our situation and feelings at the time. I sprang to the mast, and was just in time to take off the sprit from the sail as the storm of rain and wind struck us. I requested all the others except Mr. Harrison to lie flat down in the bottom of the boat, and told him to keep her bow right across the swelling waves. By this time the sail was blowing in every and any direction. It fortunately, in its flapping about, doubled itself around the mast in such a manner as to make a little sail of three or four feet in width at the bottom, running to a point at the top. I was at the foot of the mast, and, getting hold of a strap around one of the bundles, secured the sail to it as well as I could. The wind was terrible, and the full bent of the storm was upon us, and our little cock shell of a life preserver was doing well, only now and then taking in a half bushel of water, while those in the bottom with buckets and pans were bailing it out. I told Mr. Harrison I thought we would make the shore, but my worst fear was our foundering. If the beach was flat, it would be all right, but a bluff bank or any solid impediment would be our ruin. I counselled all to be ready at the very first sign of bottom for all hands to spring out and, keeping the bow to the shore, urge the boat at every swell or wave forward and keep it bottom down. The howling of the tempest kept us from being aware of our approach to the shore, but I thought I heard an additional confused noise, and the next second I bawled out, “The shore! All hands be ready.” We struck on a pile of drift logs, brush, and sea-weed, and the next swell carried us high and dry on a sandy grass plat. Still urging the boat out a length further, we congratulated ourselves on our safe landing and prepared to start a fire, which was attended with trouble and difficulty. Everything was wet, and the rain, though light, was still coming down. We gathered every available thing that would likely burn, dried ourselves and clothing, and slept soundly the balance of the night.
The next morning we relaunched our boat, but had to haul it near one hundred yards to the water. We put in our trumpery, and started to the east in search of the Vermilion Bay 11 or River. It was several miles before we came to it. It was a narrow bit of a bayou, twenty or thirty feet wide. Its small size made us a little skeptical as to whether we had found the proper stream. After going up two or three miles we saw sure signs of civilization in some hogs, and next we heard a large bell like a cow-bell, and further on the noise of the bark of a dog, and soon the crowing of a cock. We advanced until we came to a large road, when we landed. Mr. Harrison, Alsbury, and Mr. Tadlock went in search of information as to where we were, etc. The over-anxiety and labor of the night before were in such contrast with our present prospects and condition, that the sudden change of our situation completely relaxed and unhinged me. I took to a shade and grass plat, and was soon lost in a big sleep. In an hour or so I was awakened by the return of our party with the addition of a creole and his little boy some eight years old. He was one of the very worst specimens of that class, who at that time made up the great majority of the inhabitants of the settlement on the upper Teche, then called Newtown. In addition, this man could not speak one word of English. The others, being Kentuckians, could not speak one word of Creole French, and they brought him to see if the Doctor or myself could help out. The Doctor could give no assistance. In my intercourse with the creoles in and about New Orleans I had picked up a few words of their language. I pointed to the boat, which we wished to go to Newtown. He said it was three miles, or one league. I asked him what he would charge to take it, and he said three or four dollars. We told him to get his cattle and cart, and in the evening we were safe on the banks of the Teche, where we remained two days, I having finished my undertaking.
We here had to employ a pilot to show us the route out to the Mississippi through the continuous lakes to Plaquemine, which we reached about the first of October, 1822. Mr. Harrison was astonished and apparently disappointed when I told him that we would separate at this point. He remonstrated, and urged as an inducement for me to return to Kentucky that I would gladden the hearts of my two sisters, both married and well to do, who lived in three or four miles of him. I told him that in my present distitute condition I could not think of it; that all I had to depend on was my knowledge of figures and my pen; and that the chance here in New Orleans or in Louisiana was much better than up the country. He asked if I was not going back to Texas. He said that he would go right back with at least ten or fifteen families, and that he was much in hopes of my going back with them. I told him I thought I had enough of Texas; that I had lost one year and all I had in the world; and that he had a good idea of what I had suffered. But I added that, if in a year or two Colonel Austin should be alive and his grant should be secured, I would hunt Mr. Harrison out when I went back.
I took a boat—I think the “Car of Commerce”—, and the following day I went to the city, working my passage down. 12
Now I will give my judgment as to why the immigrants of the Lively missed the connection with Colonel Austin. I enter on this subject with hesitancy, with doubt as to the propriety of such a step at this late day, more particularly as my statement is at variance in some measure with what has been handed down in print as the history of this period. What I know I learned orally from others in conversations had on the vessel and at our dock and boat yard not to or intended for me, but for a few on the trip, viz., Mr. Jennings, Mr. Harrison, H. S. Holston, the two old bachelor brothers, the Messrs. Lovelace, and Wm. Little, the most of whom were from Sicily Island in Louisiana, not from Natchez. I had my berth in a rather secluded part of the cabin, and could hear most of what was said; and, as I never appeared to notice or reply or question on this or any other subject, my presence was totally disregarded. But I doubt if there was a single adventurer except the Lovelaces that was more alive to the success of the enterprise. Any and every thing spoken in reference to it had a place in my mind, was put up for future analysis, and was of all absorbing interest to me. It was those conversations that gave me an insight into affairs; it was through this medium that I made up my judgment that the Messrs. Lovelace were personally and pecuniarily interested in the success of the enterprise. The question put itself forward why these old men should take such an interest in the success of such an expedition. The reason could be no other than a pecuniary one.
The old man, Edward (Governor, as we called him) Lovelace, seemed to be the center or guiding spirit of the conclave. This showed itself more prominently when we were landed at first on the island, and more particularly on our unfortunate disembarcation at the mouth of the Brazos—unfortunate, because of our not landing also a portion of provisions. My mind was peculiarly exercised on the subject. On the following morning as the prospecting party was making preparations to get off in search of the land immigrants, I remarked, rather to Mr. Jacky Lovelace, that they had better let the yawl make one more trip to the vessel for a larger supply of provisions, as it would be the last chance they would ever have at the Lively. Then this yawl-mouthed Beard, who was cook and steward, said in a loud voice that that young fool did not know what he was talking about. Captain Jennings was taken up with what I said, and followed me a short distance and asked what I meant. I told him that I had good reasons for saying what I did, that the day or night after the yawl started up the river with the prospecting party the Lively would be missing; which proved a fact, and she has never been heard of since.
I learned nearly at the outset that these two old hunters and trappers and perhaps Mr. Holston, then some twenty-five or twenty-eight years old, had been to the head waters of the Arkansas, the White, the Ouachita, and the Red and its tributaries. I was also satisfied that they had in their hunting peregrinations up some one or more of these streams, come in contact with Moses Austin, as they averred that he was a trader to Mexico and to Santa Fe. 13 I inferred that his last trip to these places was not the first; that he had once or twice before come through from Bexar by the same route by their home. I learned from young Phelps and Stephen Holston, who were nephews of the Messrs. Lovelace, that they were considered wealthy. They had been cultivating jointly a plantation, making two hundred or two hundred and fifty bales of cotton annually. Now when Moses Austin came through the last time, returning from his trip in May, then sick with fever, he recuperated a little and was furnished with means and a horse to make his way home. These men, the Lovelaces, knew of his probable success in his Texas enterprise, and had promised to give him additional aid, and also to return with him to meet his commissioner at Bexar. 14
Now when the elder Austin reached his home his disease terminated in pneumonia; and, when information reached him of the success of his application to locate a colony, and his health and condition rendered him unable to accomplish the return trip to San Antonio, he immediately empowered his son to fulfill his contract. Circumstances go to show that his son Stephen F. must have left his father previous to his demise, though it is stated by Yoakum that he left after the father's death, only allowing the colonel twenty-eight days to reach Natchitoches, even if he left the day of his father's demise; and in addition he could not come direct from Missouri to Natchitoches, as he had to, and did, come via Natchez, and thence by Sicily Island, having to make a detour around Arkansas and North Louisiana to avoid the Indians of those regions. Besides this, Colonel Austin had picked up Messrs. Little and Beard at Terre Haute, where he remained a few days. He reached Sicily Island some time in June, when the Lovelaces and others joined him. They then proceeded to the rendezvous at San Antonio, where they received the confirmation of his claim. They immediately went to designate the outline of his grant, after which they returned to the Lovelace plantation; and coming from there the three, i. e., Colonel Austin, Mr. Hawkins, 15 and Little, met me on the Natchez. Here Colonel Austin had his proposition advertised in the Natchez papers, and the same recopied in one or two New Orleans papers.
I had made up my mind that upon the return of the yawl the Governor and party did not represent fully what they saw and heard while up the river. They said the party at the Bahia crossing could give no information as to the whereabouts of Colonel Austin, therefore it was best to deny seeing any one, as a demoralized spirit was already apparent, and the information they had would heighten this feeling, if known.
I now put down my opinion as to why we could not meet or hear of Colonel Austin up to July 22nd. It was believed that his presence was again necessary at the seat of government on his return from New Orleans in December or January, 1822, and on his return he was detained in company of commissioners selecting and locating the boundaries of his grant; for about this time other grants had been projected for a similar purpose, and they might interfere some and create difficulty in his location. 16
Now we of the Lively did not reach the mouth of the Brazos, our place of disembarcation, until the 2nd of January, 1822. The scouts sent to find the vessel, in lieu of going on horseback, should have taken the Brazos. They went direct to the San Jacinto. Now, when Colonel Austin arrived on the Brazos about the 1st of January, 1822, he was informed that a change of dynasty had occurred, and that his presence was necessary to have his claim confirmed by the existing dictator, Santa Anna. Hence he was absent the whole of the spring until June, 1822. We in the meantime heard any and all sorts of reports about his absence. Political feeling at the capital, Mexico, ran very high; and when Colonel Austin presented his documents, which were made out and signed by the officers of the late emperor Iturbide, he was incarcerated. But through influential parties and the catholic priests—principally the latter, as they were then the power, and also that Austin was and had been raised a catholic 17—he was not only released, but his claim confirmed. I have every reason to believe that he did not return from the city of Mexico until after July 1st; and this is mere conjecture, for I have never learned when he did return. Up to this time immigration had most evidently increased, and still they came.
The three principal objects of the first part of this investigation will be:
First, to point out the island of Mal-Hado by certain indicia sufficient to distinguish it from all others on the Texas gulf coast. According to the relation of Cabeza de Vaca it must be five leagues long and half a league wide. It must have another island back of it, on which the clergyman and negro lived the first winter, and from which they were brought to Mal-Hado in the spring of 1529. It must have an ancon or bay about two leagues wide between it and the mainland. Going along the coast on the main there must be four streams before reaching an ancon or bay a league wide, with a tongue of land projecting into it from the Pánuco side; and on reaching the high land on that side there must be visible a high, white sand bank to the southeast. And when all these marks of identity are fairly shown to exist so related to each other, the known law of infinity in the variety of things will require the island so related to them to be Cabeza's Mal-Hado.
Second, to show with reasonable certainty where Cabeza and his companions left their Indian masters and fled to the Avavares. It must be within thirty leagues of a place on a river where there were many very large trees, which bore nuts similar to those of Galicia. It must be in a prickly pear region, where at least two kinds are found, one better than the other. It must be within four or five days' march of a stream in whose vicinity there are trees bearing fruit resembling peas, which hangs on the trees till as late as October. And if these places can be found sustaining such relation to each other, that prickly pear region will be the point from which the unfortunate Spaniards fled when the moon was full on the thirteenth of September to the camp of a party of Avavares, which they reached that day.
Third, to find a crossing of a river about as wide as that at Sevilla, where the water will strike the breast of a man going through it, and beyond this crossing a mountain having a certain position relative to it and reaching to within fifteen leagues of the seacoast.
When these three principal points shall have been fairly identified, that part of the route belonging to the history of Texas will have been shown with sufficient certainty for historical purposes; and this task, forming the first part of the present paper, written three hundred and sixty-three years after Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions passed over the route in question, will now be undertaken.
Much of what is found written in Cabeza's relation requires the salt of reason to extract from it the real facts comporting with known natural truth. It is something like the testimony in regard to a diversity of incidents and circumstances, which is used to deduce therefrom the main fact it is sought to establish, and may be brought under the rules established by experience and reason in such cases; but those incidents which harmonize with known natural facts should not be rejected, since many of these may still exist and may be collated with the statements made, however confused such statements may be in their order. So the things mentioned in connection with Cabeza's traveling inland as a peddler, when found still existing, may tend with some certainty to identify the places on the ground; while the failure to mention prominent natural objects in noted regions may tend to prove that he did not travel in that direction. And, while the mention of things common in diverse places and extending over many degrees of latitude may not afford strong affirmative evidence in favor of any suggested route on which they may be found, it would be powerful negative evidence against the route not having them. Therefore the data given by Cabeza must be considered both affirmatively and negatively and harmonized, as far as possible, with known natural as well as historical facts, rejecting only such as are absolutely irreconcilable with others well known, or are upon their face purely hyperbolical.
With these rules in view, the whereabouts of the island of Mal-Hado will first be sought as the initial point of the route in question.
With a royal commission to conquer and govern the provinces on the main from Rio de las Palmas to the cape of Florida, Pánfilo de Narvaez sailed from San Lúcar de Barrameda on the 17th of April, 1527. He was detained in Cuban waters, and did not finally reach Florida till April 12, 1528. 18 Soon after landing and wandering inland, he returned to the coast, and failed to find his ships; then he built five small boats and embarked with those of his men still living to go the best way they could to Rio de las Palmas. After many incidents, and after the party was forced out to sea by the current of a great river, the boats were separated, and finally two of them were stranded upon an island, their crews then numbering eighty men, among them being Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca; and this island is the one they called “isla de Mal-Hado,” isle of Evil-Fate, 19 from which the route in question began.
The first natural fact leading to the identification of this island is the current in the Mexican Gulf, known as the littoral current, drifting floating objects towards the Texas coast, striking with its greatest force about the northern end of St. Joseph's Island and turning southward down its coast and that of Mustang and Padre islands. And a careful study of this littoral current will show that it was most natural for the boats, once thrown upon it, to be drifted by it to St. Joseph's Island, which is most probably the one they struck on November 6, 1528. 20
The Indians on that part of the coast were, in later years, called Carancahuaces; and their stature was such as to make them seem to be giants, even without the fear Cabeza says they inspired in the Spaniards. 21
Cabeza says: “The Indians having Alonso de Castillo and Andrés Dorantes, and the others remaining alive, being of another tongue and other kindred, crossed over to another part of the main to eat oysters, and remained there until the first of April, and then returned to the island, which was, at the widest of the water, two leagues from there, and the island is half a league in width and five leagues in length.” 22
While this suits St. Joseph's Island, it can not be adjusted to any of the others from Pass Caballo to the mouth of the Bravo. Matagorda Island is fully ten leagues long, 23 and this fact alone would exclude it from being Mal-Hado, though all of the circumstances, from its end on Cedar Bayou forward on the main, are the same as those from St. Joseph's Island at the same place; and all the other circumstances of both are about the same, except that there was an island back of Mal-Hado to which the clergyman and negro went the first winter, and whence they were brought back in a canoe by the Indians in the spring, when Castillo and Dorantes returned to the island. Matagorda serves as the island back of St. Joseph's, from which it is separated by Cedar Bayou.
Mustang Island is nearest the same length as St. Joseph's, it being about 38,000 varas, or 7 leagues and three-fifths, in length. 24 But the other facts will exclude it.
From a point on the main opposite the mouth of Cedar Bayou about two leagues on, at the head of a small bay now called St. Charles' Bay, there puts in a stream called Bergantin Creek, which assumes the appearance of a river when swollen by heavy rains. Three leagues further on is Copano River. Thence four leagues is Mission River. From the latter it is five or six leagues to the Aransas River. 25 These make the four crossed before reaching the ancon or bay a league wide; and from the Aransas to the reef crossing, where the San Antonio and Aransas Pass railway now crosses the ancon between Nueces and Corpus Christi bays, is about ten leagues. So these facts meet and satisfy the description given by Cabeza, who, in speaking of Oviedo, says: 26
“Each year he delayed me, saying the next we should go. At last, however, I got him out and passed him over the ancon and four rivers there are along the coast, because he did not know how to swim; and thus we went on with some Indians until we arrived at an ancon a league across and everywhere deep; and from what appeared to us therefrom and what we saw, it is the one they call del Espiritu Santo.”
In his translation of Cabeza's relation, Buckingham Smith gives, in an addendum under chapter XVII, an extract from the letter contained in Oviedo's Historia de las Indias, as follows:
“The Christians traveled thence” [meaning from where they reached the main from Mal-Hado] “two leagues to a large river that was beginning to swell from freshets and rain, where they made rafts on which they crossed with much difficulty, there being few swimmers. Three leagues further they came to another river, running powerfully from the same cause, and with so much impetuosity that the fresh water for a time extended a good way into the sea. * * *
The ten were now joined by another Christian, and after going four leagues came to a river, where they found a boat which was recognized to be that of the Comptroller, Alonso Enriquez, and the Commissary, but nothing could be seen of the people. Having walked five or six leagues more, they arrived at another large river, 27 where were two ranches, out of which the tenants fled.” * * * The Spaniards left the next day, and on the fourth day arrived at a bay, having lost two of their number by hunger and fatigue. Nine only now remained. The bay was broad, nearly a league across. The side towards Pánuco forms a point running out nearly a quarter of a league, having on it some large white sand stacks which it is reasonable to suppose can be descried from a distance at sea, and were consequently thought to mark the river Espiritu Santo.” * * * Going on, much depressed by hunger, the greater number swollen by the sea-weed they had eaten, with much exertion, at the end of twelve leagues they came to a small bay, not over the breadth of a river.” 28
All the rivers and the crossing of the bay will fit the journey from the mouth of Cedar Bayou to Corpus Christi, and the point running out for a quarter of a league or more is there; but, from the letter as given by Oviedo and translated by Buckingham Smith, it is not easy to determine whether the sand stacks were on that point or were in fact Flour Bluff at the southeast end of the high lands extending to it from Nueces bay. The latter is the most probable, for all the facts identify Corpus Christi Bay, and Pineda's description places the high sand hills at the southeast portion of the bay he describes; and Cabeza does not say what he saw was where he struck the point of land. But the high points or hills in the northwestern part of Corpus Christi might have been referred to, and the Nueces Bay taken for Espiritu Santo River. And further on the Nueces River was deemed by them to be the Espiritu Santo. The small bay twelve leagues below Corpus Christi, now called Cayo de Grullo, is certainly that to which the party of Castillo and Dorantes went after crossing the ancon a league wide. It is narrow and at the proper distance, and is another mark identifying Corpus Christi Bay.
In Smith's addendum under chapter XVII, taken from the letter, it appears that “Asturiano, the clergyman, with a negro, were living [the first winter] on an island where they went for subsistence, situated back of the one on which the boats were lost. The Indians brought them again across the bay in a canoe to the island where were Andrés Dorantes, Alonso de Castillo, Diego Dorantes, Pedro Valdivieso, with six others who had survived cold and hunger.” 29
This fully shows that Matagorda Island may serve as the one back of St. Joseph's, from which it is separated by the narrow channel now called Cedar Bayou.
The condition they were in being considered, if Dorantes' party followed the coast round from the mouth of Aransas river, it might well have taken them four days to reach the ancon, at Corpus Christi; but as Cabeza and Oviedo were accompanied by some Indians, they may have been guided directly to this reef crossing, reaching it in one day.
Taking all these facts together, they present a fair representation of a route on the main from in front of Cedar Bayou to Corpus Christi, which can not be so well fitted to any other portion of the Gulf coast, and it will be presumed that this identifies that part of the route with reasonable certainty.
With Pineda's description in mind, and standing on the high land at Corpus Christi, the white sand bank called Flour Bluff may be seen with the natural eye, while the high land appears to be continuous down to it, seeming to complete the description of Espiritu Santo bay by Pineda; and without paying attention to the courses, or to the fact of his being on the main land, while Pineda viewed the surroundings from his ship in the Gulf, Cabeza might readily conclude it was Espiritu Santo Bay that was then before him, especially when he had not seen the real bay of that name.
When the true Espiritu Santo Bay is viewed from a position at sea east of it, with the face towards the west, to the left will be seen the range of high sand hills or mounds extending along Matagorda Island, and seeming to terminate with what is now called False Live Oak Point, situated at the southeast part of the bay; while the narrow bay or ancon separating it from the range of sand mounds is not seen. This point is on the part of the bay marked on some maps as San Antonio Bay; but its identity is well known to those sailing down the bays from Indianola to Corpus Christi. 30
Speaking of this, Buckingham Smith says:
“Should this point on the shores of Texas be recognized as the one to which the remnant of adventurers have now arrived, the highest peak of sand mounds in latitude 28° 16’ 34” 08 north, in longitude 96° 47’ 39” 83 west, we may look with some confidence over the northeastern portion of the bay, as far as the entrance upon the bay of Matagorda, in latitude 28° 24’ 06” 95 north, longitude 96° 23’ 50” 56 west, the distance in a direct line of twenty-five statute miles, for the discovery of Mal-Hado. There is, however, no island in this direction that appears to answer its description, nor any place with the conditions for the point that the sand mounds unite. To the south are no hills on the shore of a bay near a river, nor any of particular mark or height as far as where the river Bravo or Grande del Norte finds outlet.” 31
Mr. Smith was doubtless unacquainted with the true topography of the coast there, and, therefore, confounded what was stated by Cabeza with the statements found in the United States coast survey. But had he been familiar with the coast by land from the northeast portion of Espiritu Santo Bay to Flour Bluff on the southeastern part of Corpus Christi Bay, he might readily have seen from such data that the survivors of the Narvaez expedition struck the main below the high point referred to by Pineda and in the coast survey, and were in fact on Corpus Christi Bay, and subsequently ascertained that a river came in to the west of where they crossed, that is the Nueces. And he would have known that Flour Bluff's relative position to St. Joseph's Island was just what he describes, except degrees of latitude and longitude, as the twenty-five statute miles northeasterly will reach from the former to the latter. 32 He was trying to fit this to False Live Oak Point and Espiritu Santo Bay, and finding that impossible, determined there was no place in existence that the description would fit, without discovering he was trying to harmonize the descriptions of two distinct places and make them apply to one only.
The longitude given by Mr. Smith is a mistake, as 96° west passes a short distance west of the mouth of the Brazos river, while 97° crosses the southwestern portion of Matagorda peninsula, passing about 47’ 39” 83 east of False Live Oak Point, and by the rule of construction applicable in such cases, his 96° should read 97°, to make it harmonize with the other calls, found to be correctly stated as they are on the ground.
The translation making “moras de zarzas” mean blackberries 33 is misleading; for the same term is applied to the black dewberries, which are abundant on that part of the coast, and usually ripening in the last days of March or first of April, while the blackberry growing on the brier bush is not found there. Where it is found, further east on the main, it does not ripen till a month or more later. 34 So while these dewberries do not prove any particular island to be Mal-Hado, their abundance on St. Joseph's, ripening by the first of April, satisfies the reference made by Cabeza to “moras de zarzas,” as the vine on which they grow is in fact briery, zarza being the common name for brier.
Mustang Island is so situated that crossing to the main from either end of it and going along the coast, would exclude the four streams; and crossing from its southern portion would exclude all of Corpus Christi Bay from the onward route to Pánuco.
Galveston island is twice as long as Mal-Hado is described to be, and could not be connected with either Espiritu Santo or Corpus Christi Bay by any such circumstances as those described by Cabeza; for if Matagorda Bay should be assumed to be the one referred to by Cabeza, they would have had to cross it far to the east of the town of Matagorda, to have done so where it was not more than a league across, and would then have been over seventy miles from the high point of the sand hill, and could not possibly have seen it; but they would have been compelled to cross all the streams putting into the bays from the Colorado to the Guadalupe, at least six in number, before reaching a place from which they could see such sand hill. So this island is excluded from being Mal-Hado.
On this statement of the case, it will be assumed that St. Joseph's Island is the veritable Mal-Hado, on whose seacoast the boats were stranded on the sixth of November, 1528.
On April 1, 1898, the writer ate of those black dewberries, or moras de zarzas, at Corpus Christi, and silently contemplated the fate of the tribes once inhabiting the islands and coast along there, and of whom the bones found at the foot of False Live Oak Point and along the banks of the Cala del Oso are the only visible remains to show that they ever lived and held Spanish slaves in this region. 35 Such, he said mentally, are the changes in the affairs of men within 362 years, since Cabeza was here, while nature still maintains the same marks of identity and infinite variety in unity.
In the light of all the foregoing facts, a reference stake, marked A, may be set on the northern end of St. Joseph's Island to mark Mal-Hado, as hereafter referred to; and another may be set opposite the mouth of Cedar Bayou, marked B, to designate the point at which the route in question began on the main. And on a point of the high land at Corpus Christi, in front of the cathedral, another may be set, marked C, to designate the spot where Cabeza and Oviedo met the Indians who gave them notice of Dorantes, Castillo, and the negro being with other Indians, and the spot where Cabeza stood when he saw what made him believe the bay there was the one “they call del Espiritu Santo.”
The object Cabeza and Oviedo had in view and the various facts and circumstances bearing upon and influencing their actions, should here be well considered. Though seeming to be close friends, they evinced unmistakable signs of dissimilar temperaments. But it may not be proper to judge either of them without full knowledge of all the facts and circumstances influencing his conduct.
Those acquainted with the history of the conquest of Mexico, written by Solís, or with what Gómara said on the same subject, may remember the difference in the conduct of the two survivors of the expedition to the sea of Darien, when Cortes sent them the request to come out and join him at the isle of Cozumel. One being a priest, without wife or children, obeyed the summons; but the other, having married the cacique's daughter and begotten upon her three children, declined to manifest that kind of patriotism requiring him to abandon his family in order to join a few of his countrymen in an uncertain adventure. Cancel the facts as to the condition of these two men, and we have a parallel to the case of Cabeza and Oviedo, who may also have been actuated by circumstances widely different.
From what has already been said, it is apparent that Cabeza knew that Pánuco was on the gulf south of him. Thère they saw the coast stretching out to the south, showing they had passed the northwest curve of it and entered upon the southward course of the west border of the gulf, leading down to Pánuco, according to Pineda's map, and he knew that was the nearest settlement of Christians when they last had communication with civilized men. But it is impossible that he could have known anything of the operations of Guzman in search of the Amazons in Jalisco and up the borders of the Gulf of California.
In his note 2 under chapter XVI of his translation, Mr. Smith says of the expressions concerning the bay that seemed to be Espiritu Santo:
“These, and other words of like import in Biedma, perhaps refer to discoveries made on the first voyage of Pineda, who ran the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico for Garay in the year 1519. That Alvar Nuñez was informed of the extent of northern explorations may be supposed from a document existing of record from the king, directing him to apply to the officers of the Contratacion in Sevilla, `of whom, outside of this instruction, you will ask a relation of the notices that it shall appear to them you ought to have knowledge of, and to possess touching the matters of that country.”'
In his “Mojones de los Indios por hacia el Norte,” Gómara mentions Espiritu Santo Bay in rather a confused manner, by omitting before it one of Pineda's calls and putting Rio de Piscadores where the bay should have been named, in 28° 30’ N. From there he says: “Hay cien leguas hàsta el rio de las Palmas, por cerca del cual atraviesa el tropico de Cancro. Del rio de Palmas al Rio Pànuco hay mas de trienta leguas.” There are one hundred leagues to the Rio de las Palmas, near to which crosses the tropic of Cancer. From the Rio de las Palmas to the Rio Pánuco there are more than thirty leagues. And as Gómara wrote after 1540 and published in 1553, before the survey was made by Villafañe and Seron in 1561, he must have obtained his information from the Contratacion at Sevilla, or from a copy of Pineda's map in Madrid. So we may presume that Cabeza expected to find the Pánuco settlements within one hundred and thirty leagues from where he took the bay to be the one called Espiritu Santo,—and this seemed to be the common impression of those cast upon Mal-Hado; from which place they sent out four of their party to go along the coast to Pánuco. And Cabeza says: “We also agreed that four men of the most robust should go on to Pánuco, which we believed to be near,” 36 this being when they first got on the island, and before they had seen the bay they thought to be Espiritu Santo. The way to Pánuco was what he thought to find out while peddling; and he explored the coast down for forty or fifty leagues, and tells the names of the tribes he met along there; and when he told Castillo his “purpose was to go to a land of Christians, and that in this pursuit and search I was going,” 37 he doubtless meant the Spanish settlements in the province of Pánuco. All this shows that they were aiming for Pánuco when they finally ran off to the Avavares. And further on it will be seen that they were within twenty leagues of the Gulf coast four or five days after crossing the Bravo. Then the conclusion follows, that when Cabeza and Oviedo separated, the former was fully resolved to make his way finally to the Spaniards at Pánuco, and the latter to spend his days with the Indians.
The next important point is the place where Cabeza and his comrades left their Indian masters and fled to the Avavares.
While Cabeza is not very clear about how long it was after hearing of his countrymen till he met them, it is plain that they did not meet until two days after Oviedo turned back to the women.
Of the Indians they met there, Cabeza says: “They also said that if we desired to see those three Christians, three days from then the Indians who had them were coming to eat nuts one league from there, on the bank of that river.” 38
How are the parts of this statement to be understood? How long did he and Oviedo stay with those Indians, and how many days were they suffering the cruel treatment he mentions? Had they moved on in any direction in the meantime? While Cabeza does not plainly answer these questions, he does say those women who crossed the ancon 39 with them were some distance behind when Oviedo determined to go back with them, which may have occurred three or more days journey from where they crossed.
“Two days after Lope de Oviedo had gone, the Indians who had Alonso del Castillo and Andrés Dorantes came to the same place that they had told us of to eat of those nuts with which they maintain themselves, grinding some small grains with them, two months of the year, without eating anything else, and even this they do not have every year, because one they are produced and another not. They are of the size of those of Galicia, and the trees are very large, and there are a great many of them.” 40
These were not black walnut trees, else he would have applied to them the term nogales, as he did to the walnut trees in Florida, 41 and would have called the nuts nueces encarciladas or silvestres, to distinguish them from the small fine nuts of Galicia, which are like the English walnuts of commerce, but smaller, and are also much the same as the nuez de Castillo, known in Spanish commerce. Never having seen the pecan trees or nuts in Spain, he had to convey the idea of them by description, for want of a common name. And the description that the trees bear one year and another not, applies to many of the pecan trees in Western Texas.
All this does not point out the river on which these pecan trees were found; but Cabeza says:
“When the six months that I stayed with the Christians waiting to put in execution the agreement we had made were completed, the Indians went off to the prickly pears, it being thirty leagues from there to where they gather them.” 42
From the bend in the San Antonio River, a little east of north from Tordilla and above the mouth of Cibolo Creek, to Loma Alta in McMullen county, or to Picacho in Duval county, it is less than thirty leagues, and that region along the dividing line between these two counties being in the heart of the prickly pear range, it may be assumed to be where they went to eat these pears; and the bend in the San Antonio River being in the midst of a pecan region, it may be taken as the centre of their nut range. So a stake may be set at the latter, marked D, to mark the pecan groves, and another on the west side of Picacho, marked E, to designate the centre of the pear range. All round this point there is abundance of the common cactus opuntia, bearing the greatest quantity of large red prickly pears, which, when first eaten in the season, cause a sickness similar to dengue fever; and the cacanapo, bearing a small pear of fine flavor and a pleasant aroma, and never causing such sickness, is also abundant there; but this cacanapo pear is not known further north beyond the Nueces River.
Speaking of this place, Cabeza says: “There are many kinds of prickly pears, and among them there are some very good, although to me all seemed so, and hunger never gave me time to select or to consider which were the best. Most of the people drink rain water standing in some places; because, although there are rivers, as they are never settled, they never have known nor designated watering places.” 43
And during the rainy seasons the water stands in small ponds all through that region. Throughout that section both kinds of prickly pears are abundant. So it suits the description far better than any other place in Texas; and the trees bearing a fruit similar to peas will be pointed out at the proper distance from this point when treating of the march after they leave here.
In what Figueroa says he heard from Esquivel, as given by Cabeza, it is said of these Indians:
“For them the best time they have is when they eat the prickly pears, because then they do not have hunger, and the time is passed by them in dancing.” 44
In his account of the nations and tongues, Cabeza places these Indians as neighbors to the Mariames and Iguaces, and where there are no stones, probably in the northern portion of Hidalgo County, as he places the Iguaces inland next to the Guaycones who lived on the coast. 45
In the addendum of Mr. Smith under Chapter XVIII of his translation, it is said of these Indians:
“The Spaniards lived here fourteen months, from May to the May ensuing of the year 1530, and to the middle of the month of August, when Andrés Dorantes, being at a place that appeared most favorable for going, commended himself to God, and went off at midday. * * * Castillo tarried among that hard people a year and a half later, until an opportunity presented for starting; but on arriving he found only the negro; Dorantes, discovering that Indians unbearably cruel had gone back more than twenty leagues to a river near Espiritu Santo, among those who had killed Esquivel.” 46
Taking the Nueces river as that to which Dorantes went back, the twenty leagues would place the unbearably cruel Indians he left in the sand below Santa Rosa and La Parra.
In the same addendum it is said: “After the practice of this exercise [meaning running the deer into salt water] once or twice the Indians, leaving the salt water, take up their journey and go inland to eat prickly pears, which they begin upon as they ripen, about August.” This fixes these Indians at their homes on the coast, and shows they knew of the prickly pears inland, though they were twenty leagues below the Nueces river, and in pursuing Cabeza's route from the prickly pear region with the Avavares, their place at the end of these twenty leagues will have a bearing upon the direction these survivors are going.
It seems from his list of the nations and tongues along the coast and opposite to these inland, that Cabeza knew these cruel Indians on the coast before finally starting away with the Avavares, and he must have known the course he was going was parallel to the coast
Of his peddling, Cabeza says:
“And now with my business and my wares, I entered inland as far as I pleased, and along the coast I went forty or fifty leagues. The principal parts of my stock in trade were pieces of shells of red conchs and the inside parts of them and sea shells with which they cut a fruit that is like beans, with which they doctor themselves and make their dances and feasts; and this is the thing of highest appreciation there is among them; and beads of the sea and other things. So this was what I carried inland; in exchange and barter for them I bought skins and ocher, with which they rub and paint their faces and hair; and flints for points of arrows, glue and hard stalks to make them, and some balls made of deer's hair, which they dye and make red; and this occupation was agreeable to me, because, going on in it, I had liberty to go where I pleased, and was not obliged to do anything and was not a slave, and wherever I went they treated me well and gave me something to eat, out of respect for my merchandise; and this principally because pursuing it, I sought the way by which I would have to go forward, and among them I was very well known.” 47
This opens a field for inquiry. To what point did he go along the coast, and what Indians did he meet with on the way? What direction, how far, and to what place did he go inland? Where did he make his exchanges? If the flint and ocher were there close together then, may they not be so still? And proper answers to these questions may shed important light upon the subject under consideration.
If he reckoned from in front of Mal-Hado, then his forty or fifty leagues down the coast reached the Arroyo Colorado, and within forty miles of the present city of Brownsville. And his acquaintance with the habitations and names of the tribes along the coast shows that he did go along there. He says:
“In the isle of Mal-Hado there are two tongues; the people of one are called Coaques, of the other, Han. On the main, in front of the island are others, called de Chorruco, and they take the name of the woods where they live. Further ahead, on the coast of the sea, there live others called Doguenes, and in front of them others who have for their name los de Mendica. Further forward on the coast are the Guevenes, and in front of them, in on the main land, the Mariames, and going forward along the coast, are others called Guaycones, and in front of these, inland on tierra firme, the Iguaces. At the end of these are others called Atayos, and behind these, others Acubadaos, and of these there are many forward along this path. On the coast live others called Quitoles, and in front of these, within on the main land, are the Avavares. 48 There unite with these the Maliacones and other Cutalchiches, and others called Susolas, and others called Comos. And forward on the coast are the Camoles, and on the same coast, others we called los de los Higos. All these tribes have habitations and villages and tongues diverse.” 49
There are six tribes mentioned as living along the coast from in front of Mal-Hado and eleven living inland opposite to the six. If each of these six tribes be alowed eight leagues space along the coast, they will extend down forty-eight leagues, showing that Cabeza traveled along the coast that distance; and it will be shown further on that these Avavares, Maliacones, etc., were on his path near where he crosses the river as wide as that at Sevilla, and where he ends chapter XXV of his relation to introduce this account of the nations and tongues. From this it will appear that he was traveling down parallel with the coast.
Cabeza does not state the distance or direction he traveled inland to where he made his exchanges or barters; but these facts may be ascertained from the natural things he obtained there.
“Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.”While describing the march inland in Florida, Cabeza mentions the different large timbers and the fallen pines, 50 and had he, as some contend, gone inland to the north or northeast from Mal-Hado, he would have found pine forests worthy of his notice, before reaching the borders of Red River. Indeed before he crossed Trinity river the large trees would have challenged his attention; and such would have been the grandeur of the forest he traversed before reaching the Adaes village, that his memory could not have omitted it when writing the Naufragios. Indeed it kept fresh the impressions of the thorns in the chapparals on the border of the Bravo, showing he never dreamed of going north from Mal-Hado.
If the coast from St. Joseph's Island to the Arroyo Colorado be taken as the base line from which to raise the perpendicular inland, the place where he got the ocher, flints and skins may be sought to the west as far as the Bravo.
There is an abundance of red ocher on the left margin of the Bravo not far below the town of Carrizo in Zapata County, and a fine, hard quality of flint rock on the same margin above the mouth of Beleño Creek, the two being close together; and the mortars in the rocks along there, used by the ancient tribes to beat their mesquite beans, are still to be seen. There are varadulce, barreta, and other hard woods growing there, from the stalks or sprouts of which arrows were made. The arrundo fragmites, or carrizo, growing round there was also used for arrows. The Carrizo Indians living along the river there were hunters when the Spanish settlers first came there, and doubtless had skins to barter to Cabeza. There are signs of very ancient habitations in that quarter, and many Indians may have lived there when Cabeza was peddling. When Captain Sanchez first brought his flocks to where Laredo is now, in 1755, he found these Carrizo Indians living on Zacate Creek, now embraced by the limits of Laredo. All these Indians used the mesquite beans and probably used the conch shells to cut them to pieces, affording Cabeza ample consumption for his commodities.
On these trips inland Cabeza must have passed through much of the prickly pear range; and from what he says, it seems that he already knew the Avavares, the tribe to which he went when he ran away from his Indian masters.
Now returning to reference stake E in the prickly pear region, and promising to show the tree bearing fruit like peas further on, the time they ran off to the Avavares will be ascertained.
While Cabeza does not in direct terms state the date of their running off to the Avavares, he does state facts and circumstances from which it may be ascertained with reasonable certainty. And these will be presented to enable each reader to determine for himself the most probable date of their flight from their masters in the prickly pear section.
Cabeza says they struck Mal-Hado on the sixth of November, 1528. 51
He remained with the Indians there for more than a year. 52<