216 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCn.. 



flows. None are mentioned however, and the journey is described as one of 

 pleasure and delight. Their route lay eastward for two hundred leagues, through 

 pleasing, peaceful and most fertile fields, without hill or range, which finally 

 ended at a very high and insuperable ridge, near the sea, eight leagues beyond 

 the great city of Quivira. Through these pleasant and most fertile fields we 

 marched, says Father Freytas, during the months of March, April, May and the 

 kalends of June, and arrived at a large river which they call Mischipi, where' we 

 saw the first Indians of the Escanxaques nation. 



If the expedition had really arrived at the Mississippi, it would be another 

 link in the accumulating evidence, which is tending to show that the river was 

 quite well known before LaSalle explored it, but that they were far from reaching 

 it, we believe the narrative itself shows. The Spaniards probably knew by report 

 that there was a large river called Mississippi, running north and south two or 

 three hundred leagues east of Santa Fe, and consequently were prepared, after 

 traveling as far as they had, to call the first great river they came to by that 

 name. By holding a course eastward from Santa Fe they had probably rambled 

 among the tributaries of the Arkansas, until they reached the parent stem, not far 

 from where the Verdigris and its several branches enter from the north and east. 

 That it was the Arkansas rather than the Mississippi or Missouri, several state- 

 ments in the narrative tend to prove. 



The most positive that can be quoted is probably that in which the narrator 

 says they forded it in the night. After having been joined by the Escanxaques 

 who numbered 3,000 warriors (probably 300) they marched along the river for 

 two days and camped opposite the city of Quivira. During the night the Escan- 

 xaques slipped off and attacked the city, upon learning which Don Diego ordered 

 the army to cross the river which they did by fording. That this could not take 

 place on the Mississippi, nor on the Missouri near the mouth of the Platte in the 

 month of June, I think no one will deny, while it might have taken place on the 

 Arkansas. 



The palatable plums and large, fine grapes ot extremely good flavor, are 

 fruit much more likely to be found south of the Arkansas in early summer than 

 in the vicinity of the Platte, while the plantmg of their fields twice a year as men- 

 tioned by Father Freytas, their houses of cane covered with straw, their gifts of 

 Indian corn, beans and pumpkins, all indicate a climate like the region of the 

 Arkansas River in the month of June, rather than the Platte. The very high 

 and insuperable ridge, which ran along the right side of the city toward the north, 

 might have been one of the hill ranges of the Ozark mountains. The very deep 

 rivers of Quivira which the Father describes as suitable to run canals for irrigation 

 are more likely to be found in some of the branches of the Arkansas with their 

 deep canons, than in the broad but shallow streams of the more northern prairies. 



Dr. Shea quotes Father Escalante, a missionary explorer of the last century 

 as expressing the belief that Quivira was the country of the Pawnees. This view 

 is not inconsistent with the theory that Penaloza's expedition found the province 

 on the waters of the Arkansas. To the Spaniards, Quivira was the unknown 



