Our Catholie Heritage in T e:xas
according to their account of the distance traveled, was sixty-one leagues from Guadalupe. On the fourteenth, about seven leagues from the Rio Grande, they found a watering place "in a plain without any trees except mesquite groves." It was here that they killed and ate their first buffalo. "In my presence there were killed," says Del Bosque, "by said Indians and Spaniards three buffalo bulls and two buffalo cows for the people to eat. The meat is very savory. The form of the buffalo is very ugly. Although large, they resemble cows and bulls. Their hair is shaggy. The withers are very high, making them appear hump-back, and their necks are large. The head is short and very shaggy, so that the wool covers the eyes and prevents them from seeing well. The horns are small and thick, but like those of the bull. The hips and haunches are like those of a hog, and the tail is bare except at the end, where there are long bristles. The hoofs are cloven, and at the knees and from there up to the shoulder there is much bristle-like hair, like he-goats. They gaze at the people sidewise like wild hogs, with hair a-bristle. They are of the size of cattle." On this day we find evidence of the frequency with which some of the Indians that lived beyond the Rio Grande had been in the habit of going to Saltillo. "There appeared Juan, an Indian of the Bibit nation, and chief of it, and said that he was a Christian, having been baptized at the Villa of Saltillo, and another Indian, a heathen, who said he was chief of the Jume nation ... and having asked them various questions, they said that for a long time they had desired to become Christians, and that some of them having gone to the Villa of Saltillo, had succeeded, but that to the rest it has been impossible because of being distant and unable to take out their people, of which many had died of smallpox without receiving the water of baptism; and that they requested this, and desired to settle in pueblos and be under instruction in the Christian doctrine." This is typical of almost every one of the places where the expedition visited. On the fifteenth there is a description of the agreement of several chiefs with all their followers to become Christians and to be congregated in a pueblo. "There appeared the chiefs Xoman, Terrodan, Teaname, and Teimamar, with their people. I had them examined through sworn interpreters who understand their language, Mexican [probably Aztec], and Castilian, named Don Lazaro Agustin, governor of the Pueblo of San Miguel de .Luna of the City of Guadalupe of this province, and an Indian named Pascual. Various questions having been asked these chiefs,
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