183
Exploration of the Big Bmd and Pecos Country
their difficulties, and would enable them to find what they sought."ss Finally on October 24, a suitable road was discovered and two days later the company was able to reach the Pecos after many hardships. Here they camped from October 26 to the 28th, when they started up the river. Up the Pecos they toiled as best they could. At first the country was rough along the river, but later it became more level and in places marshy. The brave band of settlers noticed numerous salt deposits along the way. The fish of the river proved a great blessing to the .famished and short-rationed caravan. On October 3 1, they came upon a party of Indians, evidently Querechos. Up to this time they had passed many abandoned Indian villages along the river. The Spaniards in Sosa's party were much impressed by the dogs these Indians had, which they used to carry their goods. When the Indians first saw the intruders, they started to flee, but later stopped and talked to the newcomers by signs, there being no interpreter. They probably were the same Querechos which the Rodriguez r.xpedition met a few years before. Sosa and his men were now on the northern border of Texas and New Mexico, nearing the point where the Pecos crosses the line. The frequent salt marshes encountered, the presence of the Querechos, and the mention of sand dunes are all indications of their approach to the southeastern extremity of New Mexico. From October 1 to November 7, the long caravan of oxcarts and prospective settlers had marched over a good part of present day West Texas. They had traversed the territory between a point on the Rio Grande, a few miles below the mouth of Devil's River, to the Pecos and hence along this stream as far as the point where it crosses the Texas-New Mexico border, carrying over this long stretch the first wagon train to roll over this portion of West Texas. Sosa had a right to claim with pride, in his letter to the viceroy, that he had been the first to discover a wagon trail along the Pecos to New l\'lexico.$4 We are not concerned in our narrative with the explorations of Sosa and his companions in New Mexico, the significance of his expedition lying in the new route which it opened through Texas along the Pecos Rive.r from its source up the stream to New Mexico. After several months among the pueblos, he was arrested by Captain Juan de Morlete, who had been sent by the viceroy to bring him back for having attempted a SSPacheco y Cardenas, XV, 202-203. 54 Castafio de Sosa to the Viceroy, July 27, 1591, A . G. I ., Audiencia d1 M1xico, 59-3-11 (copy furnished the author by Dr. J. Lloyd Mecham).
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