Our Catleolic Heritage in Texas
Salcedo and Bartolome Fernandez appeared, politely informed Pike that he was on the Rio Grande, and offered to escort him and his party to Santa Fe. Treated with every courtesy possible, Pike and his men arrived at Santa Fe on March 3, and after a stay of a few days, continued to Chihuahua. On March 7 the party stopped in Albuquerque. The next day they met Captain Melgares and his men, who took charge of Pike and conducted him to Chihuahua, where he arrived on April 2. After a delay of twenty-one days, Pike was informed that all his papers would be confiscated, but that he was at liberty to return by way of Natchitoches and was to be furnished an escort. Not until April 28 did he set out with an escort for Monclova, where he arrived on May 25, having passed by the Bols6n de Mapimi and through a good portion of Coahuila and the vast estate of the Marques de Aguayo. By June I he was in San Juan Bautista (near present Eagle Pass). Six days later he arrived at San Antonio, where he stayed until June 14. Seven days' march brought him to the Sabine, and on July 1, 1807, he crossed Arroyo Hondo and arrived at Natchitoches. 133 "For hospitality, generosity, docility, and sobriety, the people of New Spain exceed any nation perhaps on the globe,'' he wrote in his diary, and well he might, for he had met with courteous treatment and con- sideration everywhere. In describing the eastern frontier dragoons, he has perhaps given us the origin of the cowboy boot. "The dragoons wear ... a sort of Jack-boot, made of seal leather, to which are fastened the spurs by a rivet, the gaffs of which are sometimes near an inch in length. But the spurs of the gentlemen," he added, "although clumsy to our ideas, are frequently ornamented with raised silver work on the shoulders and the strap embroidered with silver and gold thread. They are always ready to mount their horses, on which the inhabitants of the Interior Provinces spend nearly half their lives." Of their horsemanship he wrote: "Mounted, it is impossible for the most vicious animal to dismount them. They will catch another horse when both are running at full speed, with a noose and hair rope, with which they will soon choak [sic] down the beast they are pursuing. In short, they are probably the most expert horsemen in the world." 134 The news of the arrest of Pike and his men was first transmitted to Spain in the fall of 1807 by the Marques de Casa Yrujo, Spanish minister
133Pike, E:r:ploratory Travels, 272-295. U'Jbid., 336-342.
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