The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 4, July 1900 - April, 1901 Page: 27

Route of Cabeza de Vaca.

base and perpendicular would give the distance from Pamoranes
t'o the barranca or -to the Point of Rocks, on a right line as
over 880 statute miles. In going to the twenty houses from
where they crossed the first large river, they were traveling five
days, and must have arrived there about the first of March. If
they there took a right line for Point of Rocks on the first of March
and averaged ten miles every -day, it would have taken eighty-eight
days to reach the Point of Rooks, making them arrive there on the
twenty-seventh of June, two months and twenty-seven days after
the date of their meeting Christians, wherever that may have been.
Again, if they had averaged twenty miles per day, it would have
required forty-four days to make the journey, and they would have
arrived at the barranca -or Point of Rocks on the thirteenth of
April, while it is generally admitted that they reached San Miguel
on the first of April. But in their nude condition, with flocks of
Indians deployed on the flanks, hunting for game, ten miles for
every day, including all 'days of delays and stops, would be a high
average. So the very nature of the country and known .distance
from the most northerly mountain within fifteen leagues of the
Gulf coast being considered, it is not possible for them to. have gone
from that mountain to Point of Rocks at the south end of Raton
mIountains, and thence to San Miguel or to Culiacan on the Pacific
by the first of April.
Another view must suggest itself to every thinking person while
investigating this subject. If they had gone north from the first
mountain within fifteen leagues of the Gulf coast, they would have
traversed six hundred miles of buffalo range before reaching Point
of Rocks, and would have been going with the buffalo. on the spring
return to the north, which would have rendered it impossible for
them to have failed to. see thousands of these wild cows. But
Cabeza de Vaca does not tell of seeing a single live buffalo after
leaving the Avavares to go to. a land of Christians.
Again, if they reached San Miguel on the first of April, they
would have had to. reach the barranca before that time, and they
could not have failed to encounter some very cold weather on the
plains, which would have reduced them to that necessity, experienced
by so many who have traveled on those plains, of having to use
buffalo chips for fuel. But no such thing is mentioned in Nau-