and discoverers as De Soto, La Salle, and Coronado, upon whose heads
history had erroneously placed them, through no fault, or arrogance,
however, of their own.

Cabeca, beyond any question, travelled the Old Santa Fe Trail for
many miles, crossed it where it intersects the Arkansas River,
a little east of Fort William or Bent's Fort, and went thence on
into New Mexico, following the famous highway as far, at least,
as Las Vegas. Cabeca's march antedated that of Coronado by five years.
To this intrepid Spanish voyageur we are indebted for the first
description of the American bison, or buffalo as the animal is
erroneously called. While not so quaint in its language as that
of Coronado's historian, a lustrum later, the statement cannot be
perverted into any other reference than to the great shaggy monsters
of the plains:--

Cattle come as far as this. I have seen them three times
and eaten of their meat. I think they are about the size
of those of Spain. They have small horns like the cows
of Morocco, and the hair very long and flocky, like that
of the merino; some are light brown, others black. To my
judgment the flesh is finer and fatter than that of this
country. The Indians make blankets of the hides of those
not full grown. They range over a district of more than
four hundred leagues, and in the whole extent of plain over
which they run the people that inhabit near there descend
and live on them and scatter a vast many skins throughout
the country.

It will be remembered by the student of the early history of