Chapter II (3)

[II'-37] Route N., thus bearing off from the river, main road, and line of present railroad, all of which run along together about N. N. E.; camp at or near no named place, but about 8 m. due W. of a place on the railroad (Treviño or Venadito) where a branch turns off to go to Monterey. "La Rancho" of the text, better written El Rancho, or simply ranch, is beyond the place marked on the map as an Indian village by the name of "Rambo"--unless this is the ranch itself, a little misplaced.

[II'-38] Route about N., 15-20 m. to the foot of the pass in the cross mountain, at the place marked "Rivera" on Pike's map.

[II'-39] On making Three Rivers Pass in the morning, Pike goes over the "cross mountain" which forms the divide between the waters of the San Juan and Salinas basin, and comes upon the water-shed of Rio Sabinas (which river he will cross to reach the Rio Grande). The main road which he strikes at the 13th mile is also the railroad line, and he strikes them both at or near Bajan, 5 m. above Joya, where the main road now comes in from points eastward. We have no mileage for the 24th, but it was a good day's journey to get only 9 m. short of Montelovez (Monclova).

As several of Pike's daily mileages are missing, we cannot say exactly how many miles he made it out to be from the Mapimi locality to Montelovez. If we average up the missing ones with the rest of the 14 days, it makes 15 m. a day, or a total of 210 m. Those who are better informed than myself concerning the kind of country passed over can judge how near right these figures may be. It seems to me rather scant measure for the most direct route by which the Bolson could have been flanked by anything like the curve the railroad now takes. Pike certainly never made such a fishhook-shaped trail as that delineated on his map, if he only went 210 m.

[II'-40] Route N., down E. bank of the river on which Monclova is situated, along the main road and present railroad. No mileage; but 5½ hours on a road should make 16-18 m., and set Pike near Hermanos, at the place Don Melcher or Michon had his real estate.

[II'-41] Benjamin Lockwood of Ohio had been an ensign in the levies of 1791 when he was appointed a lieutenant of Infantry, Mar. 7th, 1792, and arranged to the 4th sub-Legion, Sept. 4th of that year; he was attached to the 4th Infantry, Nov. 1st, 1796, made a captain July 10th, 1797, transferred to the 2d Infantry Apr. 1st, 1802, and to the 1st Infantry Sept. 2d of that year; and died July 29th, 1807.

[II'-42] The present town of Encinas (The Oaks) is on the road, 20 m. from Hermanos, and presumably at or near the site of the old Barego estate. Pike is fairly in the valley of Rio Sabinas.

[II'-43] Millada r. of Pike is the main fork of Sabinas r., and the one whose upper waters he left at Hermanos. Leaving it there, the road through Encinas to Alamo cuts off a bend of the river which the railroad now meanders by way of Baroteran, Aura, Obeya, and so on. The ranch was at present site of Alamo, a well-known crossing where several roads still concenter, 10 or 12 m. above the forks. It used to be called Alameda Arriba or, as we should say, "Upper Cottonwoods"; whence I imagine that Pike got his name "Millada." This river flowed to his right as he faced N.; the letter "w" of the word "which" is engraved on the map at precisely the point he crossed this stream: see next note.

[II'-44] The main stream of Sabinas r. is crossed at the place now called Potrillo, and also Juarez, 10 m. from Alamo. This sets Pike at a point 17 m. further on a bee line for the Presidio Grande. His mapping of the "Millada" and Sabinas rivers is faulty to the last degree: see the map on this point. 1. The Millada (on which the letter "w" is engraved) should turn above that point and connect with the stream on which "Montelovez" is situated. 2. The main Sabinas (identifiable on the map by "[Symbol: Triangle] Kan" engraved alongside Pike's trail) should have been carried clear up N. W., 100 m. or more. 3. The great river which Pike fetches into the Rio Grande at Presidio Grande, and which he runs down to this point from "Montelovez," does not exist. It is an imaginary river, compounded of about equal parts of upper portions of the two forks of the Sabinas, cut off from their proper connections lower down, and run into the Rio Grande about 100 m. too high up. The rest of the river (E. of Pike's trail) is connected with the Rio Grande about right--that is to say, below Laredo. Observe that Pike says nothing about crossing the mouth of any such river as his map shows just where his trail comes to the Rio Grande. It is a sheer blunder, which has baffled many a person who naturally supposed that Pike fetched up at the mouth of Sabinas r., some 40 m. below Laredo, but never could see how he got there, or how he got thence to San Antonio, or what in the name of geography the two rivers he crossed were anyhow. In fine, this affair of the Sabinas r. befogged the whole trail for several hundred miles, both in Mexico and in Texas. For my own part, I first tried to bring Pike to the Rio Grande at the mouth of Sabinas r., and very soon lost him in Nuevo Leon--to say nothing of the impossibility of trailing him thence to San Antonio. Then I tried the roads to Laredo, observing that this would do pretty well for the Texan side; but again I lost him in Nuevo Leon. Though the map itself indicated that Pike never was in Nuevo Leon (where General Salcedo, in fact, had no business to send troops, as it was out of his jurisdiction), yet political boundaries nearly a century old go for little on their face, and I was almost tempted to give the puzzle up. But I thought that I would try the experiment of disregarding the map altogether, and trailing Pike solely by his itinerary in the text. It was a week's work to satisfy myself that he was never over the present boundary of Coahuila after he left Durango, and probably never 25 m. on either side of the railroad from Mapimi to Sabinas r. There he was within two days of the Rio Grande, heading straight for the Presidio Salto; and a glance at his map showed me what the trouble was with that unlucky river.

[II'-45] Directly on the main road to Presidio Salto--the Presidio Grande, or del Rio Grande, of Pike. The running water, on which was situated a ranch, was one of the several _small_ affluents of the Rio Grande which run E. along here on the Mexican side.