[406] In his letter to the King, dated Tiguex October 20, 1541, Coronado says that he started April 23. See Winship's translation in Fourteenth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (1896), p. 580.
[407] Cicuye is Pecos, as above mentioned. The direction is north of east and the distance forty miles in an air line, or fifteen Spanish judicial leagues. By rail, which follows almost exactly the old trail, the distance is sixty-five miles, or almost precisely twenty-five leagues.
[408] The Rio Pecos. The bridge was doubtless built across the stream somewhere near Puerto de Luna. The Ms. here reads Cicuyc for Cicuye.
[409] The name by which the eastern Apaches, or Apaches Vaqueros of later times, were known to the Pecos Indians. The first Querechos were met near the eastern boundary of New Mexico.
[410] Wherever "cows" are mentioned, bison are of course meant. Herds of these animals ranged as far as the Pecos, which was known as the Rio de las Vacas later in the century.
[411] All the Indians of the great plains were expert in the sign language, as their spoken languages were many and diverse.
[412] The place has not been identified with certainty.
[413] This river, if it existed at all, was in all probability the lower Arkansas or the Mississippi, hundreds of miles away.
[414] The Turk was evidently lying, at least so far as the distance was concerned. The Texas Indians were not canoeists. The army was now in the western part of the staked plains of Texas, but had changed its course from northeasterly to south of east. The country is greatly broken by the cañons of the streams which take their rise in these parts.
[415] See Cabeza de Vaca's narration in this volume, p. 97.