2& EXPEDITION TO THK 



ver, and the Salvages do make garments thereof." He 

 adds, " It is tenne yeares since first the relation of these 

 things came to the eares of the English."* We have in- 

 troduced this quotation, partly with a view to show that 

 the fineness of the buffalo wool, which has caused it with- 

 in a few years to become an object of commerce, was 

 known as far back as Morton's time. He compares it to 

 that of the beaver, and with some truth ; we were shown 

 lower down on Red river, hats that appeared to be of a 

 very good quality. They had been made in London with 

 the wool of the buffalo. An acquaintance on the part of 

 Europeans with the animal itself, can be referred to near- 

 ly a century before that; for in 1532, Guzman met with 

 buffalo in the province of Cinaloa.t De Laet says, upon 

 the authority of Gomara, when speaking of the buffalo in 

 Quivira, that they are almost black, and seldom diversified 

 with white spots. J In his History, written subsequently to 

 1684, Hubbard does not enumerate this animal among those 

 of New England. Purchas informs us that in 1613, the ad- 

 venturers discovered in Virginia, " a slow kinde of cattell 

 as bigge as kine, which were good meatc.||" From Law- 

 son we find that great plenty of buffaloes, elks, &c. existed 

 near Cape Fear river and its tributaries. § And we know 

 that some of those who first settled the Abbeville district, in 

 South Carolina, in 1756, found the buffalo there. De Soto's 

 party, who traversed East Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mis- 

 sissippi, Arkansa Territory, and Louisiana, from 1539 to 

 1543, saw no buffalo ; they were told that the animal was 



*New English Canaan, by Thomas Morton. Amsterdam, 1637. p. 98. 

 f De Laet Americac Utriusque Descrlptio. Lugd. Batav. Anno 1633. 

 Lib. 6. Cap. 6. 

 :t Idem, Lib. 6. Cap. 17. H Purchas, ut supra, p. 759. 



^Lawson, ut supra, p. 48, 115, &c. 



