INTRODUCTION T( 



In this connection, it mav 



the delay on the part of the I 

 opening communications l K ,tw 

 language : 



" The letter post still (at i 

 port (San Diego) along the m 

 ment. the most northern of all 



than 300 leagues distant from is, and though Father Ksrahmte, in his apostolical ex- 

 cursions in 1777, advanced along the western hank of the river Zaguananas toward 

 the mountains de los Guacaros, no traveler has yet come from New Mexico to the coast 

 of New California. This fact must appear remarkable to those who know, from the 

 history of the conquest of America, the spirit of enterprise and the wonderful courage 

 with which the Spaniards were animated in the sixteenth century. Ilernan Cortex 

 landed for the first time on the coast of Mexico, in the district of Chalchinhcuecan, in 

 1519, and in the space of four years had already constructed vessels on the coast ot 

 the South Sea, at Zacatula and Tehuantepec. 



"In 1537, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca appeared, with two of his companions, 

 worn out with fatigue, naked, and covered with wounds, on the coast of Caliacan, 

 opposite the peninsula of California. He had landed with Panfilo Narvaez in Florida, 

 and after two years' excursions, wandering over all Louisiana and the northern part 

 of Mexico, he arrived at the shore of the great ocean in Sonora. This space which 

 Nunez went over is almost as great as that of the route followed by Captain Lewis 

 from the banks of the Mississippi to Nootka and the mouth of the river Columbia. 1 

 When we consider the bold undertakings of the first Spanish conquerors in Mexico, 

 Peru, and on the Amazon River, we are astonished to find that for two centuries the 

 same nation could not find a road by land in New Spain from Taos to the port of 

 Monterey." 8 



Humboldt here was undoubtedly in error. The map of Father Font, before re- 

 ferred to, shows that as early as 1777 Father Garces traveled from the mission of San 

 Gabriel, near the Pacific coast, to Oraybe, one of the villages of the Moquis, in New 

 Mexico, and the inscription on the rock u El Mora" near Zufii, in New Mexico, an 

 account and transcript of which I give in my "Journal of a military reconnaissance 

 from Santa Fe* to the Navajo country in ls4^/ Ml show that there was as early as 

 1716 a communication opened with the Moquis from Santa Fe. The inscription is 

 as follow s: "In the year 1716, upon t he 26th day of August, 1 m s^JJ>y_tlu^j^ 



(d) Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. V, pages 33 aud 34. 



