Our Catlt0lic Heritage iu TP:ras
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drinking. There was no wood or timber, except along the eastern shore, where the sea threw up the remains of shipwrecks and where numerous logs were brought down by the rivers that flowed into the Gulf. The party noted several canoes, small boats, and the half of what appeared to have been a twenty-gun vessel which they set on fire. The little grass that grew on the island was unsuited for either cattle or horses because of its toughness. There was no rock for construction purposes, nor any other kind of building material. Two old Indian chiefs who accompanied the expedition, Miguel el Fuso and Jacobo, told the Spaniards they frequently visited the island and it was not uncommon to see ships passing within sight. Mateo Martinez, a pilot by occupation, who had repeatedly sailed from Veracruz to the Rio in the ship operated by Escandon to bring supplies, declared that between the Rio Grande and Veracruz there were only two other islands called Lobos and Blan- quilla. In 1765 he had made a special exploration of the mouth of the Rio Grande and had drawn a map of it at the request of Escandon. The distance to the Nueces was estimated to be about seventy leagues. The islands offered no facilities for landing, its shore sloping very gently and being dotted with numerous sand banks marked in the distance by the surf. There were two places where it seemed the water flowed across the island into the lake between it and the coast. When the weather was severe these channels made it appear that there were several islands, but at low water it was evident that there was only one. 31 With the return of the exploring party, Colonel Parrilla was ready to continue his exploration to the northeast. It had been his intention to reexplore Corpus Christi Bay, proceeding as near the coast as possible to La Bahia on the Santa Dorotea River (San Antonio) and from there go perhaps as far as the Presidio of San Agustin de los Orcoquisacs (Arkokisas). But during the last six days of his stay, while awaiting the return of the explorers, it rained heavily and this condition together with the heavy seas and the swollen waters of the streams that enter the bay forced him to retrace his steps, going up stream for forty-two leagues, before he was able to cross the Nueces in rawhide boats to find the road to La Bahia. The rains Parrilla goes from Santa Petronila to La BaMa. SlTestimonio de los autos, y diligencias fhas, por el coronel D. Diego Ortiz Parrilla sre, las circumstancias de la Isla de los Malaguitas, que comunmte, han llamado Isla Blanca. Ano 1767. A.G. I., Audiencia de Guadalajara (Dunn Transcripts, 1767) pp. 11-16; Parrilla to the Marques de Croix, May 4, 1767. In Ibid., 3-4. In this letter Parrilla says he drew a careful map of the island and sent It with the report. This map is in the Archive of the Ministry of War in Madrid, according to Dunn.
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