It was a time of terrible drouth. The drouth had lasted two years and the little colony of Spaniards at San Saba had gone on mining with their captive Indians and their peons until the Indians had deserted, the peons had died, and there was absolutely no water left in the river or springs. Each month the band of Spaniards hoped that the next new moon would bring rain, but no rain came, and they knew that in the nearly always dry region towards Mexico, the drouth must be even worse. So, instead of going south towards San Antonio as they would normally have gone, the Spaniards set out eastward toward the village of the Waco Indians. They had often heard of a great river flowing by the Wacos’ camp, and there they hoped to find water. They left not a soul or a hoof behind, but packed on the burros their little store of provisions and what bullion they had accumulated, well knowing that they could not return until the drouth was broken. [[215]]
At Las Chanas (the Llano), they found a dry bed; the Colorado was as dry as the top of a rock. Arrived at the Lampasas Springs, they found a little water, a great deal of mud, and dead buffaloes covering the ground. They pulled some of the dead buffaloes out of the bog, got a little stinking water, and slowly moved on. But the burros were poor from want of grass and starved from want of water. To carry the heavy bullion much farther was impossible. The provisions had to be taken at any price. So two small dugouts were made in the side of a hill, the bullion was buried therein, and after the captain of the band had called on all to witness the marks of the place, the cavalcade moved on.
The trail on eastward was marked by dead beasts and dead men, but at last, depleted in numbers and wasted in fortune, the travelers arrived at the village of the Wacos. There they found a great river flowing clear and fresh, and when they had drunk and had seen their beasts drink, they knelt down to give God thanks, and the padre with them blessed the stream and called it Los Brazos de Dios—the Arms of God.
The Spanish built a kind of rude fort and waited. The drouth kept on for three more years. Los Brazos still flowed clear and sweet, and memories of the rich mines and the rich bullion left behind began to grow dim. But at last the drouth broke and the grass and weeds sprang from the earth with a great rush. The grass grew so quickly that a powerful and fierce tribe of Indians was down upon the Spaniards before they could leave. Their little settlement was annihilated. Only one man lived to get back to Mexico, and that years later when he was old and feeble; he was so broken that he had no desire ever again to come into the region of the terrible drouth. But a while before he died he wrote out on a piece of parchment the history of that search across the desert for water, the directions, as well as he could give them, to the buried bullion, and this account of the settlement and disaster on the river called Los Brazos de Dios. The hidden dugouts with their wealth have never been found, and history has forgot to record that tragic episode of the first Spanish settlement on the Brazos.
IV
A Miraculous Swim
The meager details of this legend were supplied by Mr. Charles B. Qualia, Instructor in Spanish at the University of Texas. He [[216]]says in explanation: “I heard or read the story when I was a child—where or under what circumstances, I know not.”
A Franciscan, so the legend goes, was running for his life from some terrible pursuer. He came to the river, which was so swollen and turbulent that no human being could hope to swim across it. The waters were swirling around tree tops on the banks, and in the middle of the stream great drift trunks were sweeping by. Nevertheless, he plunged in and was miraculously enabled to reach the other side. After he had looked at his helpless pursuer standing far away on the opposite bank and after he had gazed steadily at the waters he had escaped, he kneeled, and, thanking God, said that his deliverance was by “los brazos de Dios.” After that time the phrase came to be applied to the river.
In some way this version may be connected with the “Legend of the Monk’s Leap” as told by Gustave Aimard, in his The Freebooters, A Story of the Texan War.[7] In this legend a pursued monk is helped over a gorge near Galveston by two angels. However, Aimard was one of the most brazen liars that ever lived, and he probably made up the legend as facilely as he made up history and geography.