Permanent Occupation of Texas, I7I5-I7I6
49
The expedition spent Sunday, May 3, at this place to celebrate the feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross. Seven Masses were said; many received Communion; and a procession was formed, during which a cross, made for the purpose and blessed, was carried with great solemnity, while the military fired a salute. Because of this celebration and the fact that the cross was placed in the ground at this spot, the camp was called Encamp- ment of the Holy Cross. The next day the group resumed their march. Before night, Ramon came very near being killed. "There were five falls on this day, the chronicler having been one of those who fell," he records, and then he remarks: "These were all the result of the attempt of a Frenchman to show his skill in picking a hat from the ground while riding." No little amusement and surprise was experienced next day when Diego Ramon, the sergeant major, told how he had caught Joseph del Toro, a runaway soldier. He had gone in search of him accompanied by an unconverted Indian. They found the fugitive hidden in the top of a tree. The sergeant pretended he was going to shoot into the tree, where- upon the Indian begged him, in Gods' name, not to kill the man. In the meantime the soldier descended with all alacrity. On May 5, the marriage of Ana Guerra, a mestiza, and Lorenzo Mer- cado, a Spanish soldier, whose banns had been previously published, as requested by the leader of the expedition (who had consented to bring the girl into the company of his family for the purpose), was performed with due solemnity. All the soldiers fired a salute in honor of the newly wedded couple and the missionaries gave them their blessings. It is sig- nificant to note this ceremony which, as far as is known, is the first of its kind to take place between the Rio Grande and the San Antonio. 26 After a day of rejoicing and feasting, the expedition again resumed its march. On the 7th, they crossed the Frio River, which they found dry, and two days later went over the Hondo, where a good passageway was found. 26There were marriages performed in the little colony of La Salle, and no doubt the missionaries that established the first missions in East Texas must have solem- nized the marriage of some of the neophytes, but there is no record of a marriage in the country here indicated. It should also be noted that the marriages that took place at the little fort of St. Louis on Garcitas Creek were between Frenchmen, those in East Texas were between Indians, while this was a marriage between a mestiza and a Spaniard, symbolic in many respects of the fusion of the two races and cultures. The marriage was celebrated on the east side of the Nueces, about two leagues southeast of the place where the exped,ition crossed the ri\'er. The marriage of Joseph Galinda, one of the soldiers, took place in Coahuila just before entering Texas.
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