Chapter 19

_Our separation by the Indians._

When the six months were over, I had to spend with the Christians to put in execution the plan we had concerted, the Indians went after prickly pears, the place at which they grew being thirty leagues off;[130] and when we approached the point of flight, those among whom we were, quarrelled about a woman. After striking with fists, beating with sticks and bruising heads in great anger, each took his lodge and went his way, whence it became necessary that the Christians should also separate, and in no way could we come together until another year.

[130] In an article on the wanderings of Cabeza de Vaca, by Ponton and McFarland (_Texas Historical Association Quarterly_, I. 176, map, 1898), the northern limit of the cactus belt is placed on a line extending irregularly westward from the mouth of the Colorado River of Texas.

In this time I passed a hard life, caused as much by hunger as ill usage. Three times I was obliged to run from my masters, and each time they went in pursuit and endeavored to slay me; but God our Lord in his mercy chose to protect and preserve me; and when the season of prickly pears returned, we again came together in the same place. After we had arranged our escape, and appointed a time, that very day the Indians separated and all went back. I told my comrades I would wait for them among the prickly-pear plants until the moon should be full. This day was the first of September,[131] and the first of the moon; and I said that if in this time they did not come as we had agreed, I would leave and go alone. So we parted, each going with his Indians. I remained with mine until the thirteenth day of the moon, having determined to flee to others when it should be full.

[131] 1534. Cabeza de Vaca had evidently lost his reckoning (perhaps during his illness), as the date of the new moon in this year was September 8.

At this time Andrés Dorantes arrived with Estevanico and informed me that they had left Castillo with other Indians near by, called Lanegados;[132] that they had encountered great obstacles and wandered about lost; that the next day the Indians, among whom we were, would move to where Castillo was, and were going to unite with those who held him and become friends, having been at war until then, and that in this way we should recover Castillo.

[132] _Anagados_ in the 1542 edition. The tribe cannot be identified, although it may be well known under some other name. _Anegado_ is Spanish for "overflowed," "inundated," but it is by no means certain that the Spaniards applied this name to them. Buckingham Smith suggests that they may have been the Nacadoch (Nacogdoches), but this does not seem probable, as the latter tribe lived very far to the northeast of the point where the Spaniards now were, that is, some thirty leagues inland from the coast between latitude 28° and 29°. The name sounds more like _N[)a]dáko_, the designation which the Anadarcos give themselves. This Caddoan tribe, when first known, lived high up on the Brazos and the Trinity, but in 1812 their village was on the Sabine. They are now incorporated with the Caddo in Oklahoma.

We had thirst all the time we ate the pears, which we quenched with their juice. We caught it in a hole made in the earth, and when it was full we drank until satisfied. It is sweet, and the color of must. In this manner they collect it for lack of vessels. There are many kinds of prickly pears, among them some very good, although they all appeared to me to be so, hunger never having given me leisure to choose, nor to reflect upon which were the best.

Nearly all these people drink rain-water, which lies about in spots. Although there are rivers, as the Indians never have fixed habitations, there are no familiar or known places for getting water. Throughout the country are extensive and beautiful plains with good pasturage; and I think it would be a very fruitful region were it worked and inhabited by civilized men. We nowhere saw mountains.

These Indians told us that there was another people next in advance of us, called Camones,[133] living towards the coast, and that they had killed the people who came in the boat of Peñalosa and Tellez, who arrived so feeble that even while being slain they could offer no resistance, and were all destroyed. We were shown their clothes and arms, and were told that the boat lay there stranded. This, the fifth boat, had remained till then unaccounted for. We have already stated how the boat of the Governor had been carried out to sea, and that of the comptroller and the friars had been cast away on the coast, of which Esquevel[134] narrated the fate of the men. We have once told how the two boats in which Castillo, I, and Dorantes came, foundered near the Island of Malhado.

[133] _Camoles_ in ch. 26. They evidently lived toward the northeast, north of Malhado Island; unidentified.

[134] Esquivel.