155
Communications Between Santa Fe and San Antonio
equally friendly. They continued their journey westward, inclining slightly to the north, and, after going seventy leagues, arrived on May 25 in the old pueblo of Pecos. The next day Vial and his companion went on to Santa Fe, where Vial delivered the letters to the governor, together with a diary and a map of the route followed. Vial had travelled a total of 459 leagues, more than 1,100 miles, from San Antonio to Santa Fe by way of the Taovaya villages on Red River. But this route was far from being direct. Governor Fernando de la Concha of New Mexico was as anxious as Governor Cabello of Texas to discover a direct route of communication between the two provinces. Shortly after the arrival of Vial, he conse- quently commissioned Corporal Jose Mares to undertake a similar expe- dition with instructions to follow a more direct route from Santa Fe to San Antonio.' Tlie expedition of Jose .Mares from Santa Fe to San Antonio, 1787. Jose Mares, accompanied by Cristobal de los Santos who had gone to Santa Fe with Vial, and by Alejandro Martin, a Comanche interpreter from New Mexico, set out on July 31, 1787, and following a southeastern course to the Pecos River, crossed this stream and turned east to Bernal; they reverted to the southeast and camped on Gallinas River on August 2, probably at or near Lourdes. The next day they went south for seven leagues, possibly to modern Chaparito, where they turned east. During the following three days they travelled thirty-four leagues eastward, probably along the southern tributaries of the South Canadian, to a point east of Tucumcari, where they met a band of Comanches who had had a battle with the Apaches to the south, in which they had killed five and captured thirty. Mares and his companions continued east four more leagues, approxi- mately ten miles, and then turned south probably in the vicinity of modern San Jon; continuing in this direction and passing by Cameron and Grady, they reached Blanco River (Creek) on August 9. They pro- 9 Por el Nombre de Dios Todo-joderoso, ,y de la Sant,sima Virgen Maria ,,,; Se,iora del Rosario Conquistadora del Reyno, ,y la Provincia del Nuevo Mexico concevid11 en gracia Amen. Yo el cavo Jose ,lfares Ymba/ido del Rl. Presidio de la Ca,Pilal Villa de Santa Fe, ltago este derrotero ,para inteligencia, ,y conociminrto del transuo q11e comien;o a ltacer ,Para el Presidio de San Antonio de Bejar, lto,y el dia 3 r ultimo del mes de Julio del ,;resente aiio de mil setecientos ocllenla ,y siete. The copy used in this study Is in A. G. M., Historia, Vol. 43, document 4. But the original is in the Bexar Archives, now in the University of Texas. This was compared with the copy in H istoria, Vol. 43, used in the present study.
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