Tl1e Search for La Salle, 1685-1689
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and firm. It can be traversed on horseback without danger of being bogged. The tide rises about a rod on the beach." The next day an observation was taken and the latitude was found to be 25° and 45'. Once more De Leon explored the coast for a distance of eight leagues. He found some boards along the shore, pieces of ship masts, broken rudders, barrel heads, four wheels of artillery, three broken canoes, a thick glass bottle with a cork which, on being uncorked, was found to contain wine which had soured. De Leon noted considerable wreckage in various stages of decay showing that vessels had met with disaster on this coast at different times in the past. But the thing that ca:.ised him the greatest wonder was to see a number of green cornstalks which appeared to have been washed ashore by the sea. "I concluded," he says, "that there must be a settlement in the neighborhood on a river whose flood waters had washed this corn to the sea." 25 On July 18, the return trip was begun and Cadereita was reached exactly one month after the expedition departed. A report was made to the Marquis of Aguayo who was much disappointed with the failure to find the French settlement. He consequently ordered a new expedition to be organized, which was to explore the coast to the north of the mouth of the Rio Grande. A ttcm-pt to fiud La Salle from New Jlfexico. Shortly after the viceroy ordered Aguayo on January 20, 1686, to undertake a search from Nuevo Leon, two proposals were presented by Fray Nicolas Lopez, former Custodian of New Mexico, and Captain Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, for the establishment of missions and settlements among the Jumano and Tejas Indians as a defense against the projected plans of the treach- erous Penalosa. In response to the royal cedulas of 1678 and 1685, Fray Lopez proceeded to give an account of what he knew concerning the provinces of Teguayo and Quivira, and urged the advisability of establishing missions among the Jumano and Tejas Indians, whom he had visited in 1684 in company with Mendoza, as a means of opening communication with the two former provinces. "\,Vhile in the country of the Jumanos," he declares, "there came ambassadors from the Tejas, a powerful kingdom where Mother Maria de Agreda taught many Indians." He then pointed out that the country of the Tejas was not more than seventy leagues from Quivira. He begged, therefore, that
25 /bid., Vol. 25, pp. 306-308.
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