134 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 



crossed it; though they entered the highlands, they turned hack before 

 meeting with buffaloes. 



It hence appears that at this early date the buffalo frequented none of 

 the lowlands of the Mississippi, nor those of the Washita and the Red 

 Rivers, and only reached the Gulf coast at the mouth of the Guadaloupe 

 and San Antonio Rivers; and that it probably extended thence south- 

 ward along the coast as far at least as the mouth of the Rio Grande del 

 Norte. 



The former existence of the buffalo in the valley of the Pecos seems to be 

 well substantiated. Speaking of Espejo'a march down the Pecos River in 

 1584, Davis says: " They passed down a river they called Rio de Ins Vacas, 

 or the river of oxen [the river Pecos, and the same Cow River that Vaca 

 describes], and was so named because of the great number of buffaloes that, 

 fed upon its banks. They travelled down this river the distance of one hun- 

 dred and twenty leagues, all the way passing through great herds of buf- 

 faloes."* 



As already noticed, Coronado met with vast herds of buffaloes in 1542 on 

 the plains near Cicuic, on the Upper Pecos River. From Cicuic Coronado 

 marched eastward across the plains of Northern Texas to about the one hun- 

 dredth meridian, and thence returned again to Quivira.t making a journey 

 of ••three hundred leagues." "All that way & plaines are as full of crooke- 

 backed oxen, as the mountaine Serena in Spaine is of sheepe."$ 



These " crookebacked oxen" Gomara (as translated by Hakluyt) has thus 

 described : "These Oxen are of the bignesse and colour of our Bulles. but 

 their homes are not so great. They have a great bunch upon their fore 

 shoulder-, and more haire on their fore part than on their hinder part : and it 

 i- like wooll. They have as it were an horse-mane upon their backe bone. 



and much haire and very long from the knees downeward. They have great 



tuffes of haire hanging downe their foreheads, and it seemeth that they have 

 beardes, because of the great store of haire hanging downe at their chinnes 



and throates. 'flic males have very long tailes. and a great knobbe or lloeke 

 at the end: so that in some re-pert they resemble the Lion, and in some 

 other the Camel]. They push with their homes, they rutin.', they overtake 



and kill an horse when they are in their rage and anger. Finally,it is a 



»D ' Spanish Conqt ■ '* , Vol. HI, p. 478, 



I ' \| 1 1 • ..i ( oronndo'i to, u before cited. 



X ll.iklnvt, \ • III. |i ISo (Translated from Gomanft Historia de las Indias, Cop. 814.) 



