Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States, 1528-1543. / The Narrative of Alvar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca. The Narrative of the Expedition of Hernando De Soto by the Gentleman of Elvas

by active 16th century Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca; active 16th century Pedro de Castañeda de Nájera; Knight of Elvas

[436] The altitude of Taos is 6983 feet; of Taos Peak, 13,145 feet.

[437] Seemingly the Piros villages on the Rio Grande south of Isleta. They are now extinct, having been finally abandoned during the revolt in 1680, the inhabitants fleeing with Governor Otermin to El Paso. Senecu and Socorro (taking their names from former villages) were afterward established below El Paso, where the few survivors of the Piros, almost entirely Mexicanized, still reside.

[438] This rendering, doubtless correct, is due to Ternaux. The Guadiana, however, reappears above ground some time before it begins to mark the boundary of the Spanish province of Estremadura. The Castañeda family had its seat in quite the other end of the peninsula. (Winship.)

[439] See p. 337, note 1.

[440] The Newfoundland region.

[441] See p. 285, note 1.

[442] Castañeda, like many other early Spanish chroniclers, is careless in his directions. It will be observed that he frequently says west, east, etc., when he means westwardly, eastwardly. This has led one writer on the Coronado expedition seriously astray. Culiacan is decidedly northwest of Mexico City.

[443] The Gulf of California.

[444] Lower California is of course meant.

[445] For an account of the Indians of Lower California in the eighteenth century, see the translation of Father Jacob Baegert's narrative, by Charles Rau, in the Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1863 and 1864.