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Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/149

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ALVARADO RETURNS TO CUBA.
29

thus far were placed in Alvarado's ship, which sailed the 24th of June. The remainder of the expedition continued its now north-westward course past Nautla,[1] which the Spaniards called Almería, and with the mountains of Tuxpan[2] in full view, advanced as far as Cabo Rojo, some say as far as the Rio de Pánuco.[3] The entrance to the large lagoon now known as the Bahía de Tanguijo, was mistaken for a river and named Rio de Canoas. On anchoring here the ships of the Spaniards were fiercely attacked by the occupants of twelve canoes,[4] which came out from a large city compared by the worthy chaplain to Seville in size and magnificence, in common with other towns along this seaboard; and as if this were not strange enough, the same authority goes on to

  1. Town and river given both by Cortés and Orontius. Colon writes R: de almeria; Ribero almera; Vaz Dourado, allmeira; Hood, Almeria; nos. vi. and vii., Munich Atlas, rio de almeria, and Mercator, Almeria. Ogilby places north of Lhanos de Almeria a large gulf labelled R. de S Po y S Paulo, and south of it Toluia, and Tore Branco. Dampier lays down Almeria I. opposite Tispe and Haniago Isle on the mainland. Laet gives Naothlan ó Almeria, and Lhanos de Almeria.
  2. 'Vimos las sierras de Tusta, y mas adelante de a hi â otros dos dias vimos otros sierras muy altas, q͏̃ agora se llamã las sierras de Tuspa;' so called, Bernal Diaz says, Hist. Verdad., 10, from the towns lying at their base. The Rio de Tuxpan is supposed to be the San Pedro y San Pablo of early days. 'Da das Peter-und Pauls-Fest auf den 29 Juni.'
  3. Kohl thinks Grijalva did not pass Cabo Rojo, the C: roxo of Vaz Dourado, and Hood, and I am inclined to agree with him. Bernal Diaz says, Hist. Verdad, 10, 'Y estoes ya en la Provincia de Panuco: é yendo por nuestra nauegaciō llegamos á vn rio grande, que le pusimos por nōbre Rio de Canoas.' The nomenclature of this stream is quite regular in the several times and places. Cortés gives Rio Panuco loaton; Colon, R: panuco; Ribero and Vaz Dourado, panuco; Orontius, R. panico; Hood, Panuço; Baptista Aguese, panucho, and rio panucho; no. vi. Munich Atlas the same; Ptolemy, 1530, in Munster, Panuco; Mercator, river and town Panuco, and next town south Chila. And so on with Hondius, Ogilby, Dampier, and the rest. See Goldschmidt's Cartog. Pac. Coast, MS., i. 578. Upon the hypothesis that the San Pedro y San Pablo and the Tuxpan were two streams, the latter may have been the Rio de Canoas of Grijalva and the Pánuco discovered by Montejo and Alaminos the year following, as Kohl surmises, but not otherwise. Herrera says the expedition did not pass Cabo Rojo; Bernal Diaz speaks of a wide projecting cape, which does not exist beyond the Panuco River. Yet both affirm that the province of Pánuco was reached, and we well know that little would be said to strangers of an aboriginal province by its inhabitants before its great town, or its great river, was approached. Hence the general impression that Grijalva on this occasion coasted as far as Tampico, and that the Pánuco was his Rio de Canoas. It is my opinion that the entrance to the Bahía de Tanguijo, mistaken tor a river, was the Rio de Canoas of Grijalva, and that Cabo Rojo was his ultimate point of discovery.
  4. Some say sixteen.