Northern Coahuila was occupied by the Franciscans, and several settlements were founded in the last quarter of this century. Texan annals of the period are divided into three distinct parts: first, the various expeditions from New Mexico to the east in 1601-80; second, the disastrous attempts at colonization by the French under La Salle in 1682-7; and third, efforts of the Spaniards from 1686, resulting in several exploring expeditions from Coahuila, and in the foundation of several Franciscan missions on the branches of the rivers Trinidad and Neches, which were abandoned in 1693.

In the eighteenth century, but for the conquest of Nayarit in 1721-2, the provinces of Sinaloa and Durango relapsed into the monotonous, uneventful condition of Nueva Galicia, that of a tierra de paz; but Sonora and Chihuahua were more than ever a tierra de guerra, the victim of murderous raids of Apaches and other warlike and predatory tribes. A line of presidios was early established along the northern frontier, which, with occasional changes of site as demanded by circumstances, served to prevent the abandonment of the whole region. There was hardly a settlement of any kind that was not more than once abandoned temporarily. New mines were constantly discovered and worked under occasional military protection; the famous mining excitement of the Bolas de Plata, at Arizonac, occurred in 1737-41; rich placers of gold were found in Sonora; and the Real de San Felipe, or city of Chihuahua, sprang into existence near the mines of Santa Eulalia early in the century. The missions showed a constant decline, which was not materially affected by the expulsion of the Jesuits and substitution of the Franciscans in 1767. Many new missions were founded, but more were abandoned, and most became but petty communities of women, children, and invalids, or convenient resorts of the ablebodied from time to time, the friars retaining no practical control. There was but slight gain of new

PROGRESS IN THE NORTH.

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territory, though in Pimería Alta the missions and presidios were extended northward to San Javier del Bac and Tubac, in what was later Arizona. On the west coast, however, in 1769-1800, the Spanish occupation was extended to latitude 37°, and exploration to the 60th parallel, while the Franciscans founded a series of nineteen new and flourishing missions in Alta California; and in the extreme east Texas was reoccupied in 1716-22 with missions and presidios, the country remaining permanently under Spanish dominion, though the establishments were never prosperous.

I

There is yet another introduction or accompaniment, pertaining appropriately enough to the early history of New Mexico, to which I may call attention here, at the same time suggesting that a perusal of its details as recorded in another volume of this series may yield more of pleasure and profit if undertaken a little later, after the reader shall have made himself familiar with the record of the earliest expeditions as presented in the opening chapters of this volume. allude to the mass of more or less absurd conjectural theories respecting northern geography, which, plentifully leavened with falsehood, were dominant among writers and map-makers for two centuries, and which -belonging as much and as little to New Mexico as to any part of my territory-under the title of the Northern Mystery I have chosen to treat in my History of the Northwest Coast. The earliest theories respecting the geographic relations of America to Asia were in a sense, as we have seen, reasonable and consistent; but after the explorations of 1539-43, this element of consistency for the most part disappeared, as the Spanish government lost much of its interest in the far north, with its faith in the existence of new and wealthy realms to be conquered there. There remained, however, a firm belief in the interoceanic strait, and an ever-present fear that some other nation ♦ Vol. i., chap. i.-iv., with copies of many old maps.

would find and utilize it to the disadvantage of Spain. Meanwhile, there were many explorers legitimately desirous of clearing up all that was mysterious in the north, conquerors bent on emulating in that direction the grand achievements of Cortés and Pizarro, friars eager to undertake as missionaries the spiritual conquest of new realms for God and their king; and their only difficulty was to gain access to the royal treasury in behalf of their respective schemes. The fear of foreign encroachment was a strong basis of argument, and in their memorials they did not hesitate to supplement this basis with anything that might tend to reawaken the old faith in northern wealth and wonders. These interested parties, and the host of theorists who embraced and exaggerated their views, generally succeeded in convincing themselves that their views were for the most part founded in fact. The old theories were brought to light, and variously distorted; the actual discoveries of 1539-43, as the years passed on, became semi-mythical, and were located anywhere to suit the writer's views, Indian villages being magnified without scruple into great cities; each new discovery on the frontier was described to meet requirements, and located where it would do the most good; and even the aborigines, as soon as they learned what kind of traditions pleased the white men most, did excellent service for the cause. It must be understood that much of all this was honest conjecture respecting a region of which little or nothing was known; but theory became

5 A late writer says, somewhat in this connection: 'It is difficult for persons in our generation to realize the circumstances under which the various expeditions connected with N. Mex. were made during the 16th, and indeed the 17th, century. We have been so accustomed to the general geog. contour of the Amer. continent from our earliest youth, we know so well the distance from ocean to ocean, and from the gulf to the Artic region, that it seems difficult to remember that the intrepid explorers who penetrated to the north after the fall of the Montezumas had no idea at all of the extent of the mainland, and were never sure as they ascended a mountain but that its summit would bring to view the South Sea to the west, the North Sea, or Atlantic, to the east, or the great Arctic Ocean toward the pole....The explorer of those days was travelling entirely in the dark. Nothing in more modern times has been similar to, or can again resemble, the uncertainty and romance

THE NORTHERN MYSTERY.

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rapidly and inextricably mingled with pure fiction; and there were few of the reported wonders of the north that had not been actually seen by some bold navigator, some ship-wrecked mariner wandering inland, or some imaginative prospector or Indian-fighter. Not only did the strait exist, but many voyagers had found its entrance on the east or west, and not a few had either sailed through it from ocean to ocean, or reached it from the interior by land. The kingdoms and cities on its banks were described, though with discrepancies, which, indeed, threw no doubt on its existence, but rather suggested that the whole northern interior might be a great network of canals, among which the adventurer-would the king but fit out a fleet for him-might choose his route. Only a small portion of the current speculations and falsehoods found their way into print, or have been preserved for our reading; but quite enough to show the spirit of the time. The resulting complication of geographic absurdities, known as the Northern Mystery, has had a strange fascination for me, and its close connection with the early annals of New Mexico, as with those of the other Pacific United States, will doubtless be apparent to all.

of those early expeditions. For the recent explorers of Africa, for example, had a perfect knowledge of the shape of the exterior of the continent, and knew exactly what tribes lived on each shore, and what rivers emptied into each ocean. All that was left as a terra incognita was a certain area in the centre, and that of known length and breadth. But the early explorers of America literally knew nothing of the land they entered. It was absolutely virgin soil. They might find impassable mountains or enormous lakes; they might have to traverse almost interminable deserts, or discover rivers whose width would forbid their crossing; they might chance upon gigantic volcanoes, or find themselves on the shore of the ultimate ocean. And as to the inhabitants and products, they were equally ignorant. We are sometimes induced to smile at the marvellous stories related by some of the older explorers, at their still more extravagant expectations, and the credulity with which everything (however exaggerated or unnatural) relating to the new continent was believed. But we must remember that it was a day of real marvels, and that nothing could well be imagined more extraordinary and unexpected than those things which had already been discovered as realities. An entire new world had been opened to the enterprise, the curiosity, the cupidity, and the benevolence of mankind. It is as if to-day a ready mode of access to the moon were discovered, and the first adventurers to the lunar regions had returned laden with diamonds, and bearing tidings of riches and wonders far beyond the wildest imagination of former generations.' Prince's Hist. Sketches of New Mexico, 16-18.

The wanderings of Cabeza de Vaca, including, as most or all writers on the subject have agreed, the first visit of Europeans to New Mexico, have been recorded somewhat in detail in another volume of this series. For that reason, but chiefly because it is my opinion that Cabeza de Vaca never entered New Mexico, I devote in this volume comparatively little space to the subject; and for the latter reason, what I have to say is given in this introductory chapter instead of being attached to the record of actual explorations in the next. Álvar Nuñez, or Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, and a negro slave called Estevanico were the only known survivors of the expedition of Narvaez to the gulf coast in 1528. After years of captivity among different native tribes, they finally escaped from servitude on the Texas coast, crossed the continent in a journey that lasted nearly a year, and arrived at San Miguel de Culiacan in April 1536. The success of so remarkable a trip resulted from the leader's wonderful good luck in establishing his reputation as a great medicineman among the natives, who escorted the strangers from tribe to tribe along the way with full faith in their supernatural powers; or perchance the wanderers were, as they believed, under the miraculous protection of their god.

Naturally no journal was kept; but a report was made on arrival in Mexico, and a narrative was written by Álvar Nuñez after he went to Spain in 1537.7 There is no reason to question the good faith of either report or narrative as written from memory; but there is much discrepancy and confusion, not only between the two versions, but between different statements in each. Moreover the narrative informs us

See Hist. North Mex. States, i. 60-70.

Relacion que dió Alvar Nuñez, etc., 1st pub. in 1542, with later ed. as Relacion y Comentarios and as Naufragios, also Italian and French translations. The report made in Mex. 1536 is known only by the version in Oviedo, Hist. Ind., ii. 582. Buckingham Smith, in his carefully annotated Cabeza de Vaca's Relation, a translation of the narrative, made use also of the report through Oviedo. For further bibliog, details, see ref. of note 6.