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Our Catlzolic Heritage in Te:xas
be followed and that they could penetrate into these lands at will ; and lastly "it will cause great wonder," he said, "to the natives to see Spanish soldiers entering from all directions, before the news of their presence can be transmitted by smoke signals." ·But the chief purpose of Escandon had been in fact to make a careful survey and map of the entire region which he intended to colonize in order to become better acquainted with the natives that lived there, the resources, and the best sites for the establishment of missions and settle- ments. The results of his skilfully and cautiously laid plans were soon revealed. In January, 1747, seven divisions, with a total of seven hundred and sixty-five soldiers, descended simultaneously into the unexplored area, all converging upon the mouth of the Rio Grande. The woods and mountains, the hills and plains of the vast region that extended over an area almost four hundred miles long and three hundred miles wide, resounded with the tread of Spanish feet and the laughter and song of the bold explorers. The gentle voices of prayer were heard for the first time in the solitary marshlands of the Gulf coast region as the friars and the soldiers told their beads at twilight, and Gregorian chant intoned the praise of God in the magic valley of the lower Rio Grande when the various detachments gathered near its mouth and gave thanks for the successful accomplishment of their enterprise. This preliminary exploration stands unsurpassed in the history of American colonization. In three months a virgin area of twelve thousand square miles, inhabited by apostates and barbarous Indians, who had resisted all efforts of the Spaniards to subdue them, crisscrossed by the forbidding ranges of the Sierra de Tamaulipas and by numerous streams, and dotted with countless lagoons and unpassable swamps along the seacoast, had been thoroughly and completely explored, surveyed, and mapped. Space does not permit us to give a minute description of the various explorations of each detachment of soldiers. But we cannot pass in silence the expedition led by Orobio y Basterra, the Captain of the Presidio of La Bahia del Espiritu Santo, to whom we owe the first detailed description of the Gulf coast area from the mouth of the Guadalupe to present day Brownsville. To him also is due the honor of having described fully and accurately for the first time the present Bay of Corpus Christi, which he originally named Bahia de San Miguel. Exploration of tlie Gulf coast from tlee G11adalupe to tlee Rio Grande. Agreeable to the instructions of Escandon, Governor Francisco Garcia Larios, of the Province of Texas, ordered twenty-five men, fully equipped,
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