CHAPTER XI

Seeing the great necessity for salt that his people were experiencing, for they were dying for lack of it, the adelantado made thorough inquiries of the curacas and their Indians in that province of Capaha in order to learn where they could get some. In the course of this questioning he found eight Indians in the hands of the Spaniards who had been captured the day they entered that pueblo, and were not natives of it, but strangers and merchants who had traversed many provinces with their goods; and among other things, they were accustomed to bring salt to sell. Being brought before the governor, they told him that in some mountains forty leagues away there was a great deal of very good salt, and to the repeated questions they asked them, they replied that there was also in that country much of the yellow metal they asked for.

The Castilians rejoiced greatly at this news, and two soldiers offered to go with the Indians to confirm it. These were natives of Galicia, one named Hernando de Silvera and the other Pedro Moreno, diligent men to whom anything could be entrusted. They were directed to note the nature of the country through which they passed and bring a report as to whether it were fertile and well populated. To barter for and purchase the salt and the gold, they took pearls and deerskins and some vegetables called frisoles that Capaha ordered to be given to them. They also took Indians to accompany them and two of the merchants to act as guides. Thus prepared, the Spaniards set out, and at the end of the eleven days that they spent on their journey they returned with six loads of rock-salt crystals, not made artificially, but found in this state. They also brought back a load of very fine and resplendent brass [copper], and concerning the quality of the lands they had seen, they said that they were not good, for they were sterile and thinly populated. Because they needed it so badly, the Spaniards consoled themselves with the salt for their disappointment and misunderstanding regarding the gold.

With the unfavorable reports that his two soldiers had given him concerning the lands that they had seen, the governor decided to go back to the pueblo of Casquin in order to make another journey to the west from there to see what lands there might be in that direction, because from Mauvila [Alabama] to that point [Indiana] they had always marched toward the north, in order to get away from the sea. Having so decided, the Castilians left Capaha in his pueblo and went back with Casquin to his, where they rested five days. At the end of that time they left it and marched four days' journey down the river through a fertile and well-populated country. Then they arrived in a province called Quiguate, whose lord and inhabitants came out peacefully to receive the governor, and entertained him. On the next day the cacique asked his lordship to go on to the chief pueblo of his province where he was better prepared to serve him than in that one.

The Spaniards traveled five more daily journeys, always down the river, through a country that, as we said of the last one, was well populated and had an abundance of food. At the end of the fifth day they reached the principal pueblo, called Quiguate, from which the whole province took its name. It was divided into three equal districts, in one of which was the lord's house, situated on a high elevation made by hand. The Spaniards lodged in two of the districts, and the Indians were assembled in the third, there being plenty of lodgings for everyone. Two days after they arrived all the Indians and the curaca ran away without any cause at all. Two days later they returned, asking pardon for their bad behavior. The cacique excused himself by saying that a certain urgent necessity had forced him to leave without his lordship's permission, thinking to return on that same day, and that it had not been possible for him to do so. It might have been that after his flight the curaca feared the Spaniards would burn his pueblo and fields on their departure, and that this fear caused him to return. Apparently he had left with bad intentions because in his absence his Indians had been rebellious, doing such damage as they could by stealth and wounding two or three Castilians. The governor overlooked all this so as not to break with them.

On one of the nights the Spaniards spent in this camp it happened that the assistant to the sergeant major, who was named Pablo Fernandez, a native of Valverde, went to the governor at midnight and told him that the treasurer Juan Gaytan, having been summoned to make the rounds on horseback in the second night watch, had refused to do so on the grounds that he was his Majesty's treasurer. The governor was very angry because this gentleman was one of those who had complained about the conquest in Mauvila and had planned to leave the country as soon as they should arrive where there were ships, and return to Spain or go to Mexico. This, as we have said already, was the cause of obstructing and disarranging the purposes and well-laid plans that the governor had in mind for conquering and settling the country.

Thus since the present disobedience recalled his past anger, the governor got out of bed and, stationing himself in the patio of the curaca's house, which was on a high place, he said in such a loud voice that, although it was midnight, the whole pueblo heard him: "What is this, soldiers and captains? Do the mutinies that were plotted in Mauvila for returning to Spain or going to Mexico still persist, so that under pretext of being officials of the real hacienda you refuse to stand the watches that fall to you? Why do you want to return to Spain? Did you leave some inheritances there to go back and enjoy? Why do you wish to go to Mexico? To show the weakness and cowardice of your spirits, when you could be lords of such a great kingdom where you have discovered and traversed so many and such beautiful provinces, you have thought it better (in abandoning them through your pusillanimity and cowardice) to go and lodge in a strange house and eat at'another's table, when you could have your own in which to entertain and do good to many others? How much honor do you think they will do you when this becomes known? Be ashamed of yourselves, and understand that, officials of the real hacienda or not, we all have to serve his Majesty, and that no one shall presume to absent himself, whatever privileges he may have, or I shall behead him, whoever he may be. Understand further that while I live no one shall leave this country, but that we must conquer and settle it, or all die in the attempt. Therefore do your duty and give up your vain presumptions, because this is not the time for them."

The governor showed with these words, spoken in great anger and heaviness of heart, the reason for the perpetual discontent that he had felt all the way from Mauvila and that he felt continuously until his death. Those to whom they were addressed did as they were ordered from there on without raising any questions, because they understood that the governor was not a man to be trifled with, particularly when he had declared himself as decisively as he had done.

CHAPTER XII

The Spaniards spent six days in the pueblo called Quiguate. On the seventh they left it, and in five daily journeys they made, always downstream along the banks of the Rio de Casquin, they reached the principal pueblo of another province, called Colima. Its lord came out peacefully and received the governor and his army very cordially and with signs of affection, which greatly pleased the Castilians because they had heard that the Indians of that province were accustomed to use [the juice of a poison] herb on their arrows. Our men were very fearful of this, because they said that if poison were added to the usual ferocity and boldness with which the Indians shot their arrows, what recourse could they have? But finding that they did not use [the poison], they received the friendship of the Colimas with greater satisfaction, though it did not last long, for within two days they rose up, without any reason for it, and the curaca and his vassals went to the woods.

After remaining one day in the pueblo of Colima following the flight of the Indians, collecting provisions on the march, our men continued their journey. They marched over some fertile cultivated fields and through some open woodlands, easy to traverse, and at the end of four days' march they came to the bank of a river, where the army encamped. After making their camp, certain soldiers went down to walk by the river, and passing along its shore, they happened to see a blue sand at the water's edge. One of them took up some of it, tasted it, and found that it was brackish. He told his companions, and they said that they thought saltpeter could be made of it for making powder for the harquebuses. With this in mind they set to work handily to take up the blue sand without an admixture of the white. Having collected a quantity of it, they put it in water, rubbed it together between their hands, strained off the water, and put it to boil. As they made a large f ire under it, it was converted into salt of a somewhat yellow color, but effective and with a very good taste.

Rejoicing at this new discovery, and because of their great need for salt, the Spaniards spent eight days in that camp and made a large quantity of it. There were some who in their craving for salt, seeing that there was now an abundance of it, ate it by itself in mouthfuls, as if it were sugar. To those who scolded them they said, "Let us get our fill of salt, because we have had a great craving for it." Nine or ten of them ate their fill of it in such a manner that in a few days they died of dropsy. Thus some died from lack of salt and some from too much.

MISSOURI

ARKANSAS

INCA JUMPS FROM HERE INTO NAGUATEX (TEXAS);
THAT PART OF HIS NARRITIVE HAS BEEN MOVED ACCORDINGLY

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