[II'-42] The present town of Encinas (The Oaks) is on the road, 20 m. from Hermanos, and presumably at or near the site of the old Barego estate. Pike is fairly in the valley of Rio Sabinas.
[II'-43] Millada r. of Pike is the main fork of Sabinas r., and the one whose upper waters he left at Hermanos. Leaving it there, the road through Encinas to Alamo cuts off a bend of the river which the railroad now meanders by way of Baroteran, Aura, Obeya, and so on. The ranch was at present site of Alamo, a well-known crossing where several roads still concenter, 10 or 12 m. above the forks. It used to be called Alameda Arriba or, as we should say, "Upper Cottonwoods"; whence I imagine that Pike got his name "Millada." This river flowed to his right as he faced N.; the letter "w" of the word "which" is engraved on the map at precisely the point he crossed this stream: see [next note].
[II'-44] The main stream of Sabinas r. is crossed at the place now called Potrillo, and also Juarez, 10 m. from Alamo. This sets Pike at a point 17 m. further on a bee line for the Presidio Grande. His mapping of the "Millada" and Sabinas rivers is faulty to the last degree: see the map on this point. 1. The Millada (on which the letter "w" is engraved) should turn above that point and connect with the stream on which "Montelovez" is situated. 2. The main Sabinas (identifiable on the map by "△ Kan" engraved alongside Pike's trail) should have been carried clear up N. W., 100 m. or more. 3. The great river which Pike fetches into the Rio Grande at Presidio Grande, and which he runs down to this point from "Montelovez," does not exist. It is an imaginary river, compounded of about equal parts of upper portions of the two forks of the Sabinas, cut off from their proper connections lower down, and run into the Rio Grande about 100 m. too high up. The rest of the river (E. of Pike's trail) is connected with the Rio Grande about right—that is to say, below Laredo. Observe that Pike says nothing about crossing the mouth of any such river as his map shows just where his trail comes to the Rio Grande. It is a sheer blunder, which has baffled many a person who naturally supposed that Pike fetched up at the mouth of Sabinas r., some 40 m. below Laredo, but never could see how he got there, or how he got thence to San Antonio, or what in the name of geography the two rivers he crossed were anyhow. In fine, this affair of the Sabinas r. befogged the whole trail for several hundred miles, both in Mexico and in Texas. For my own part, I first tried to bring Pike to the Rio Grande at the mouth of Sabinas r., and very soon lost him in Nuevo Leon—to say nothing of the impossibility of trailing him thence to San Antonio. Then I tried the roads to Laredo, observing that this would do pretty well for the Texan side; but again I lost him in Nuevo Leon. Though the map itself indicated that Pike never was in Nuevo Leon (where General Salcedo, in fact, had no business to send troops, as it was out of his jurisdiction), yet political boundaries nearly a century old go for little on their face, and I was almost tempted to give the puzzle up. But I thought that I would try the experiment of disregarding the map altogether, and trailing Pike solely by his itinerary in the text. It was a week's work to satisfy myself that he was never over the present boundary of Coahuila after he left Durango, and probably never 25 m. on either side of the railroad from Mapimi to Sabinas r. There he was within two days of the Rio Grande, heading straight for the Presidio Salto; and a glance at his map showed me what the trouble was with that unlucky river.
[II'-45] Directly on the main road to Presidio Salto—the Presidio Grande, or del Rio Grande, of Pike. The running water, on which was situated a ranch, was one of the several small affluents of the Rio Grande which run E. along here on the Mexican side.
[III'-1] Pike is now seen to have been all the while on the old Spanish trail from Coahuila into Texas—for it was the "old" trail of his day, a century ago. The place is 40 m. below Eagle Pass or old Fort Duncan, and 90 m. above Laredo or old Fort McIntosh. It is thus the middle one of three places on the river within easy striking distance of San Antonio, Tex. From each of the three roads still converge to the latter point; but this most historic place on the lower Rio Grande has in the course of time fallen between two stools, so to speak. For now one railroad runs from San Antonio nearly S. to Laredo, by the way of Pearsall, Derby, Cotulla, Encinal, Webb, and Sanchez, and another comes W. to Laredo from Corpus Christi on the Gulf; while a third railroad connects San Antonio with Eagle Pass by way of Castroville, Salinal, and Brackettville (Fort Clark). The last named one is that which Pike kept so close to on his way out of Mexico; the one from Laredo runs in Nuevo Leon to Monterey and so on. Eagle Pass is roundly 500 m. up the Rio Grande, by any practicable road, but less than half as far from the Gulf in a direct line. Forty years ago it had a population of 300, and Fort Duncan, which adjoined the town, was our uppermost military post on the river. On the other side the Mexicans had their similar establishment at a place called Piedras Negras or Black Rocks. A fine view of this place is given on one of the engravings of the U. S. and Mex. B. Survey, supposed to be bound opp. p. 72. The Ciudad Porfirio Diaz is there or thereabouts now, and another settlement called Fuentes is in the neighborhood; but Fort Duncan has disappeared, except from history. Fuentes is on a small river which falls in just above; higher up on the same is San Fernando de Rosas, or Zaragoza, a point whence various roads radiate. Laredo or Loredo is a very old place, whose history dates back to the early Spanish occupation of the country. Emory writes that in his time, say 1850, it was a decayed place of 600 inhabitants, having been ravaged by savage hordes, and being then supported mainly by old Fort McIntosh, which was built a mile above the town. He thinks that the countless herds of horses which had been stampeded and stolen by the Indians were the progenitors of the mustangs which roamed the plains of Texas thence N. and E. Laredo is now a focal point of roads from every direction, including two railroads; and a place called Nuevo Laredo is established across the river. At 61 or 62 m. by the road below Laredo, and thus opposite the mouth of Rio Sabinas (which takes the undesirable name of Rio Salado below its forks), a fortified trading-post was built, and called Bellville. This name appears on maps of 40 years ago, but has lapsed, like that of Redmond's Ranch by which it was once known, and there is nothing on the American side to show for what would supposably be a marked place—the confluence of so large a river with the Rio Grande. But there is a town of Carrizo a few miles below, on the Texan side. The Mexican town of Guerro or Guerrero is located on the N. bank of Rio Salado, 4 m. up; and 3 m. further are the handsome falls, a colored plate of which should be found opp. p. 65 of the Report last named. Forty miles below this confluence, Rio Alamo, also known as Rio Alcontre, falls in on the Mexican side, and 4 m. up this river is the town of Mier, on its S. bank. Mier, or a town of that name in this vicinity, must be an old place; Pike marks a Mier on the Texan side. The Mier of the Mexican War became a celebrated place, during the Texan invasion of 1840, when a desperate fight occurred on its plaza. It was then a town of 2,000 or 3,000 inhabitants, and had many stone buildings among the straw-thatched huts. It made much history, and was a point of strategic importance, being the starting-place of the shortest and most direct road to Monterey. Military operations on the Rio Grande during the American occupation of Mier are said by Emory to have altered the channel of the river, with the result of throwing the island of Los Adjuntos over to the Mexican side, and thus changing what had been the United States and Mexican boundary. About 5 m. further down the Rio Grande stands Roma, a town on the American side, notable as the head of ordinary steamboat navigation. Below this, at the distance of 16 or 17 m., are the adjoining localities of Rio Grande City and Ringgold Barracks. These notable places are opposite the mouth of the San Juan r., on some of whose headwaters Pike was found in the country W. of Saltillo, and which is the first considerable stream that falls in on the Mexican side above the Gulf. The town of Camargo is built on its E. bank, about 4 m. up. The original establishment of Fort Ringgold is old (for our young history on the Rio Grande); it was a mean place in 1850, when Rio Grande City had a population of about 300, but came into prominence during the years of the Boundary Survey, when it was a base of various operations, and a point of observation: distance from the sea, 241 m. by the river; alt. 521 feet; lat. 26° 22´ 27.79´´ N.; long. 98° 46´ 32.85´´ W. (Emory, l. c.). All the points here in mention, between and including Ringgold Barracks and Laredo, are in Texas or in Tamaulipas; for Nuevo Leon is cut off from the Rio Grande by the Tamaulipan "Panhandle" which runs up to Coahuila. To return now from our trip up and down the river to the famous place where we left Pike: The name of Presidio Rio Grande which Pike uses is not yet entirely obsolete, but the place is now better known as Presidio Salto—that is, "Fort Falls," or the Mexican military post which was established near the falls of the Rio Grande. Las Isletas, or The Islets, is the name of the place in the river where the usually impassable falls or rapids occur, and just above these is the crossing. The scene is well shown on the plate opp. p. 68 of the Report cited. The latitude of Las Isletas was determined by Michler in 1853 to be 28° 16´ 11.5´´ N.
[III'-2] N. E., heading straight for San Antonio de Bexar, on the old trail, to the vicinity of Carrizo springs, Maverick Co.
[III'-3] The Nueces (R. des Noix of F. maps, as Vaugondy, 1783; Neuces on Winterbotham's, 1795) is the first one of the large series of rivers which drain Texas to the S. E. and S., and fall into one another or separately into the Gulf. Among these are the San Antonio, the Guadalupe, the Colorado (Red river of Texas), the Brazos, the Trinity, the Nechez, and the Sabine—all of which Pike had to cross, in the order in which they are here named, to reach Natchitoches on the Red r. in the present State of Louisiana. During this journey to the last named he continued in what was then the Spanish province of Coahuila until he was almost to San Antonio, and thereafter traversed the then province of Texas, though he passed into what is now the U. S. State of Texas on crossing the Rio Grande.
[III'-4] Those three streams which Pike lays down across his trail, before the San Antonio is reached, are the Nueces; the Leona, a branch of the Frio; and the Frio, main branch of the Nueces. These are successively crossed in the order here given. To-day's pond is marked on the map, between the Nueces and the Leona; a second pond is also marked, between the Leona and the Frio. Pike letters the Frio "Cold Creek," and runs the Nueces into the Rio Grande at or near Mier (see [note1]); but it empties separately into the Gulf of Mexico near Corpus Christi. Fort Ewell was built on the Nueces, on the road between San Antonio and Laredo (Fort McIntosh); near the headwaters of the Leona was situated Fort Inge, on the road from San Antonio to Eagle Pass (Fort Duncan).
My maps differ irreconcilably concerning a certain Rio Quihi, tributary to the Nueces system. The best one, of 1857-58, makes it a large branch of the Leona, reaching across the direct route from Presidio Salto to San Antonio, and therefore across Pike's trail. This Quihi r. is the present San Miguel r., which joins the Frio in McMullen Co. On an earlier map, 1849, there is no such river, but an insignificant Quihi cr., branch of a Rio Hondo, branch of a Rio Seco, branch of the Rio Frio. Some of these maps lay down a branch of the Frio called Artaceoasa cr. in one instance, and Atascosa cr. in another; this name is the same as that of a place Pike marks "Astecostota," and of present Atascosa Co., in which the creek runs to fall into the Frio in Live Oak Co.
[III'-5] "Lee Panes" looks at first sight as if intended for Les Panis, the Pawnees. But this is Pike's way of rendering Lipans. These were a tribe cognate with Apaches, and therefore of Athapascan stock. They were often called Lipan Apaches, and sometimes Sipans. Pike elsewhere speaks of "the language of the Appaches and Le Panis," showing what he means.