September 6

Journal Description for September 6th

On the 6th we set out westward from the meadow and Río de San Rafael (where there are no prospects for a settlement). We went half a league downstream, another half through some narrow valleys to the west-northwest leaving the river to the south, to the northwest a quarter of a league, and through deep passes without rock for a league and a quarter west by west-northwest. We went west-northwest for about a mile and, after having gone nearly two more leagues west¬ward over broken terrain with some stone and a lot of small pear cactus, went down to a little valley through which a small river of good water flows. At its edge, next to the only poplar that there is, and at eleven in the morning, we halted, ordering some companions to keep on going with the loose and loaded animals. The meridian was taken, and we found that we were at 41° 6′ 53″ latitude¹⁶⁹Perhaps just slightly more than the observation of the previous night. They were at approximately 39° 33′. and that there had been no error in last night’s observation. We caught up with the other companions, who had stopped and were disgusted with the guide after having gone two leagues northwest; for, by leaving a trail which went upstream toward the west, and which seemed more direct according to reports, he was leading us along another one which enters a canyon and goes directly north — saying that the trail, even though it went northward through the canyon, made a turn to the west.

The companions conversant with the Yuta language tried to convince us that Silvestre the guide was leading us by that route either to keep us winding about so as not to proceed further or to hand us over to a Sabuagana ambuscade that could be awaiting us. To make the guide more suspect to us, they assured us of their having heard many Sabuaganas at the encampment telling him to lead us on the trail which went to the lake and, after having kept us needlessly winding around for eight or ten days, to make us turn back. And even though it was not altogether incredible that some could have said this, we never believed that the guide had agreed to it, nor even that it had actually happened, because not one of these companions of ours had told us anything like it up to here— the fact being that, while at the encampment, they did not cease magnifying other less fearsome difficulties, and more likely ones, and that in any ill event they risked only a bit less than we did.

We were well aware that in going north we were faced with a greater detour, but since Silvestre said that he led us up along that route because there was a bad upgrade on the other, we preferred to follow his judgment; but all the companions, except Don Joaquín Laín, argued hard for taking the other route, some because they overly feared the Comanches — and without foundation — and others be¬cause that route did not square with their own pet opinions, which were opposed to ours in no small degree. Then there arrived a Sabuagana Yuta, of the most northerly ones, and said that the north trail went up very farther on. As a result, we had to continue west¬ward and, after going two leagues and crossing another rivulet, we halted by its edge, naming it La Contraguía.¹⁷⁰The campsite was near the confluence of Brush Creek with Roan Creek. Today seven leagues.¹⁷¹About 18.5 miles.

Here were three camps of Sabuaganas, from which six men came over to our king’s camp, among them one who had just come from the land of the Yamparica Comanches, where he had gone to steal horses with four others; and he said that the Comanches had gone farther away and that, from what the tracks showed, they were going to El Río de Napeste¹⁷²The Arkansas River. or to the east. With this report our companions felt somewhat more at ease. These Sabuaganas were the last ones we saw.

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