[II'-18] Pike's route of May 1st probably crossed the Conchos at or near Las Garzas, and continued approximately up the right or E. bank of that river to the confluence of Rio Florido, opp. Santa Rosalia, the "poor miserable village" of the text, which stood on a hill in the point between the two rivers; its present name is the same; the railroad passes it now. Writing of Apr. 30th, 1847, Wislizenus has, Mem. p. 65: "Santa Rosalia is a town of about 5,000 inhabitants; it lies on a hill about 100 feet higher than the river, and towards the S. spreading out on a small plateau. Here, on the southern end of the town, the Mexicans had erected a fort against General Wool, when his division was expected to march towards Chihuahua." The town is not marked on Pike's map, which, moreover, gives his trail as crossing the Conchos there and the Florido higher up, though the usual road comes up the right bank of the Conchos and crosses the Florido at or near the mouth of the latter, to continue E. S. E. up its left side. Rio Florido is the largest branch of the Conchos, having itself various tributaries, as R. de Barral, falling in near Bustamente, and R. Allende, with Jimenez near its mouth; the railroad crosses both of these at the places said. Neither of these streams appears on Pike's map. The place where he dined seems to be about that marked Santa Rita on his map. This I do not recognize; but it cannot have been far from Bustamente. The evident confusion of distances in the text makes it probably impossible to identify the "private house" at which he slept. La Ramada was a small place on the Rio Florido, about 24 m. from Santa Rosalia. He seems to have come beyond this point, perhaps to the vicinity of present Jimenez (on the railroad). His legend "Camion de Monaseo" presumably stands for Camino de Monasterio (Monastery road).
[II'-19] Or Guajuquilla: a well-known place on the right or S. bank of the river, marked on Pike's map as a presidio or fortified town. A citation from Wislizenus, Mem. p. 65, will throw some further light on the situation: "Made a strong march to-day [May 3d, 1847] of 33 miles [from La Ramada], to Guajuquilla. The road was constantly winding itself through endless chaparrál; the Rio Florido on the left, and mountains and hills east and west, in the distance, from 10 to 20 miles. About half way we passed a rancho with some water; farther on the road forks; the right hand road leads directly to the town; the other by a large hacienda [qu.: where Pike slept last night?]. Before Guajuquilla we crossed the Florido, and passing through town encamped south of it. Guajuquilla looks more like a town than any other place we have seen so far, on the road from Chihuahua; its population is from 6 to 7,000." Three miles S. of this town was the Hacienda de Dolores, "a large estate with well irrigated and cultivated fields"; a place on the railroad is now marked "Dolores." Thence the road continued for a jornada of about 50 m. without water. Pike will proceed upon this on the 6th, the party having been sent ahead on the 5th.
[II'-20] An unidentifiable place on the jornada, short of the first water from Guajuquilla.
[II'-21] Pike's map marks the first spring on the road as "Ojo S. Bernarde" and the next as "Ojo S Blas"—names which appear to be transposed from the order in which they come in other itineraries of this route. Thus Wislizenus, Mem. p. 66: "About eight miles from our to-night camp, we passed a spring, with a water-pool, in a ravine to the left of our road; but the water was so muddy and brackish, that the animals refused to drink, or rather to eat it. This spot is known as San Antonio camp. Three miles further, a few deserted houses, and a spring on the right hand of the road (San Blas), are found; but the water is equally bad, and of sulphureted taste. The first good water, and in sufficient quantity, is met about five miles beyond San Blas, in San Bernardo, a deserted rancho, with willows and cotton trees, built against a steep mountain wall, from whence a fine creek takes its origin. A small plain half a mile below the rancho contains also some springs and water-pools, and good grass. We pitched our camp in this plain. We have travelled to-day, according to my estimate, about 40 miles [i. e., from a dry camp about 20 m. from the Hacienda de Dolores, near Guajuquilla]." It is clear that Wislizenus is on Pike's trail, and that they have reached what is practically the same camp—near the San Bernardo spring of the former's narrative, or the San Blas spring of the latter's map; and that the spring which Pike speaks of as the "first water from Guaxequillo" and maps as San Bernarde spring, was either the San Antonio camp or the San Blas spring of Wislizenus. The situation is considerably off the present railroad, and the above names are not to be found on ordinary modern maps. But my identifications are confirmed by the fact that both travelers, on decamping next day, cross a mountain gap or pass and soon come upon a river: see [next note].
[II'-22] The mountain Pike passes, and the river he crosses, are easily identified; the latter is the stream known as El Andabazo (or Cerro Gordo), with a town of the latter name higher up on it. This is the first of several streams we shall cross, running to the left as we go, and sinking in the Bolson de Mapimi—for they are all beyond the Conchos basin, the divide of which was passed in the course of the long dry jornada above noted. The lake that the Cerro Gordo cr. sinks in is sometimes called Laguna de Xacco: so Hughes, Don. Exp., 1847, p. 129. The trail Pike followed is thus described by Wislizenus, p. 66: "We started late, and made but 10 miles, to the Cerro Gordo, or el Andabazo creek. Having crossed the mountain, at whose foot San Bernardo lies, we went for a mile through a cañon, with mountains of limestone on both sides, and from there into another valley, watered by the el Andabazo. This considerable creek seems to run from southwest to northeast." The obscure town of Cerro Gordo above named must not be confounded with the place in Vera Cruz which was the scene of the famous battle of Cerro Gordo.
Pike has now passed the present interstate boundary between Chihuahua and Durango. The line runs on a parallel of latitude from Lago de Tlahualila 60 Mex. leagues W. to a source of Rio del Fuerte near Huenote. Pike maps Lake Tlahualila conspicuously: see the large sheet of water laid down in the Bolson Mapimi across which is legended "Here the Indians sallied forth to attack New Biscay and Cohuahuila," and which has a large forked stream running into it from the S. The main fork of this is the present Rio de Nasas, which actually discharges into Laguna del Muerto; so Pike's body of water represents both Lake Tlahualila and the Lake of the Dead, as well as some smaller sheets, as Laguna del Cayman, etc., all lying in the same general depression. Pike mentions "Lac du Cayman" elsewhere and correctly says that Rio Nassas (which he also calls Brassos) falls into it. L. de Parras, however, he lays down separately, with its own river discharging into it. The boundaries of Chihuahua, Durango, and Coahuila all meet in Lake Tlahualila, whence that between Durango and Coahuila runs S. for a few miles and then S. E., while that between Chihuahua and Coahuila extends N. along the border of the Bolson to the Rio Grande.
[II'-23] Pelayo is the best-known place we have come to since leaving Guajuquilla, and easily found on modern maps by this name; it appears on Pike's map as "P[residio]. Pelia," and has been more fully called Hacienda de San José de Pelayo. The name is thus a personal one, though some have derived it from Sp. pelar, to boil, scald, with reference to the hot sulphur springs. (One Pelayo, Latinized Pelagius, founded the monarchy of Asturias in Spain early in the eighth century A. D. The form Palayo is also found.) The place is on the main road, about 25 m. from the crossing of Andabazo cr. "Pelayo," says Wislizenus, p. 67, "is a small village, or hacienda, with several good springs around it; some of common, others of higher temperature. The creek formed by them is, according to the Mexican statements, afterwards lost in the sand.... In Pelayo, a small but steep hill was fortified on the top, by walls of stone. This fortification was probably intended against General Wool's army. Two days before us [i. e., May 5th, 1847] Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell had arrived here with the vanguard [of Doniphan's troops], and seeing the inhabitants of the place organized as a military company, he made 30 of them prisoners, and took their arms from them; but upon their representation that they would by this act become a prey to the surrounding Indians, he restored them their arms, under the condition that they be used only for defence against Indians." That series of creeks flowing to the left, two of which have thus far been mentioned, are all crossed by the railroad, much E. of Pike's route; four places at or near which such crossings occur are named Escalon, Zavalza, Conejos, and Peronal—the two former in Chihuahua, the two latter in Durango, and the last of these being nearest the railroad crossing of the creek which flows through La Cadena, as about to be noted.
[II'-24] La Cadena is present name of a place on or near the fourth one of the small streams above noted, considerably off (?) the modern main road—say 20 m. S. W. of Peronal, and 25 m. due W. of Mapimi. It is reached by a rough mountain road 18 m. from Pelayo, past the copper mine of Oruilla; the hacienda there, of which Pike speaks as being so rich in stock, had been deserted when Wislizenus passed in 1847. The creek comes from the Sierra de las Mimbres, on the W. Another steep range rises about 3 m. E. of La Cadena; the gap between the two is the Pass of Cadena, Puerta de Cadena, or "Door of the Prison," through which Pike goes to-day due E. in the direction of Mapimi.
[II'-25] Lettered "Maupeme" on the map, and so rendered in the text beyond; same word as that in Pike's legend "Bolson de Mapini"; now usually spelled Mapimi. Hughes writes Malpimi. The meaning of the word is unknown, as it probably would not be were it of Spanish derivation; its most frequent use is in the phrase Bolson de Mapimi, applied to very extensive tracts of low-lying ground encompassed with mountains, chiefly in the states of Chihuahua and Coahuila, but also overreaching into Durango. Bolson is a Spanish word which means various things, among them "purse," "pouch," or "pocket," and seems to be applied here in the same way that we use the word "hole" for several different valleys in our Rocky mts. Mapimi, as the designation of a particular place, is still the name of the town Pike comes to, now on the railroad, about 15 m. by rail from Peronal, and about 20 m. by the road he came from La Cadena Pass. It is thus the place where the highway and the railroad come together. The situation is the eastern part of an extensive valley some 20 m. wide and 35 m. long from N. to S., surrounded on all sides by mountains yielding silver mines. "Two springs, called Espiritu Santo and Agua de Leon, form here [at Mapimi] a creek, which runs through the town in an eastern direction," Wislizenus, l. c. This seems to be the stream that "formed a terrestrial paradise" for Pike—as well it might, with the Holy Ghost re-enforcing Ponce de Leon. Wislizenus found Mapimi "rather deserted," May 9th, 1847; but the artillery "fired a salute, in honor of the anniversary of the battle of Palo Alto" (fought May 8th, 1846). Pike's camp of the 11th of May, 3 m. E. of Mapimi, was snug under the eastern mountain chain, whence it was about 2 m. through a cañon into another valley forming a part of the series of the Bolson de Mapimi.
[II'-26] "The little village" is not named. Pike's map makes the triple forking of the road he is about to mention in the immediate vicinity of Mapimi; but this appears to be an error, as he was already 3 m. beyond that town when he started on the 12th. His map is otherwise so far out of drawing that it does help us much more than the slender thread of text to discover exactly what way Captain Barelo took him around the Bolson to Parras. The precise stages of the journey to Parras would probably be recoverable by one thoroughly familiar with the ground; but it is impossible for me to trace the route upon any map I have been able to find. The only road laid down on the best map before me runs down the Rio Nasas past San Lorenzo to Mayron, at the Laguna del Muerto, into which that river sinks, and thence to Pozo (Pozzo) and Parras. From the railroad junction at Torreon the track runs at a distance from, but approximately parallel with, the river and the road just indicated, through places marked Matamoras, Colonia, and Hornos, to Mayron and thence to Pozo. Wislizenus speaks of a place apparently about where Pike comes to on the 12th, where the road forks, and describes a "northern" and a "southern" route. The northern one, he says, leads by Alamito, San Lorenzo, and San Juan (all on the Rio Nasas) to El Pozo; it is thus identical with or very nearly the same as the one just said to descend the Rio Nasas. The southern one, he says, would have taken him by San Sebastian, on the Nasas, to Gatuño, Matamoras (or la Bega de Maraujo), Santa Mayara, by the Laguna de Parras to Alamo de Parras, St. Domingo, and Peña, to El Pozo, and thence to Parras. I think that Pike's route coincides most closely with this one; it is for the most part S. of the railroad, passing close to the Laguna de Parras (the sink of the Rio Guanabel); and when we find him at Parras, on the 17th, he is almost due E. of the place where he crossed the Rio Nasas, at an air-line distance therefrom of nearly or about 40 Mexican leagues—say 100 m.