Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1890-01-12

| wrecked, and which they named Nal
hado. Forty-five days had elapsed since
they had set out on this voyage from
| Horse bay.
Senator Moody thinks that these
two hundred and fifty men crowd
ed and uncomfortable as they were in
their boats. suffering frem lack of water
and the inclemency of the weather. and
| spurred with the knowledge that their
SAFETY from death by violence depended
on their ability to reach their friends a
| thousand miles from their starting point,
ioitered their time away in such man
ner that at the end of that time they
had only travelled about two hundred
| miles, or about five miles every twenty
| four hours, and this in face of the fact
that they possessed means of urging their
| boat much more rapidly, and had in
| their surroundings every incentive that
could animate men to vigorous action.
| If we estimate that the veyagers trav-
eled at the rate of twenty miles every
twenty-four hours, their voyage of forty
days on the water would have brought
| them to the coast of Louisiana, or the
southeastern coast of Texas. The Span
iards believed that they had nearly
reached Panuco; the friars, in fact,
thought they had passed beyond it.
Nunez says: "We determined to winter
at Malhado and send four of our most
robust men to Panuco, which we be-
ieved to be near" This would hardly
have been their belief had they made
but 200 miles in their boat, as Senator
Moody thinks.
Years of captivity was the lot of the
Spaniards who escaped the wrecking of
the boats. Beaten and starved, death
was welcome, and at the end of six years
not more than six or eight were living.
Nunez spent most of his time after the
first year on the main land, passing over
to the island every year to visit a COM
rade who remained upon it. Becoming
trader he roamed over the country,
and of his life while acting in that
capacity he says: with my merchan-
disc and trade l went into the interior
and Travelled along the coast forty or
fifty leagues. My object while journey
ing in this business was to find the way
by which l should have to 90 forward,
and became well known to the inhabi-
tants. If the senator's theory is true,
that Santa Rosa and Malhado are identi-
cal. how are we to account for the fact
that in that case the survivors of the
wrecks were captives among Indian
tribes less than two hundred miles from
where their journey began, who were
constantly roaming from place to place,
yet make no mention of meeting with
any Indians who had ever seen Christians
before or who had known of the former
residence of the Spaniards at Horse
bay, though they had while living there,
cruel treatment, made themselves SO
obnoxious to the adjacent tribes, that
they would not have been easily forgot
ten, and it would have been impossible
for Nunez to have peacably followed the
life of a trader for forty or fifty leagues
from Santa Rosa island along the coast,
as his travels would have brought him
in contact with the very tribes who had
suffered from the ill-treatment of the
Spaniards while building their boats.
Again, compare the Indians and their
surroundings of the Apalache country
with the wretched beings living about
Malhado. In the former they were
brave and warlike, possessing large
quantities of maize both growing and
housed, and mortars for breaking of it.
They also had beans and squashes, and
game of all kinds abounded. They had
deer skins and some mantelets of thread
with which the women partially COW
cred their persons. They were an agri-
cultural people, possessed of plenty.
Some of the forays which the Spaniards
made while building their boats, re-
suited in bringing in six hundred and
forty bushels Of maize. If Senator
Moody is right and Santa Rosa and
Malhado are the same these people were
but a few days travel from a most
wretched class of beings, though living
in the same latitude and surrounded by
the same natural resources.
Of the people about Malhado Nunez says
during the months of November and De-
cember they live on roots and fish, and
in January and February on roots
alone. Inland he says the tribes occa-
sionally killed deer, but the number was
SO small and their necessities so great
that they ate spiders, ants eggs, worms,
lizards, salamanders, snakes aud vlpers,
also earth, wood and otfal. 81 honestly
believe" he says, ''that if there were
stones in that land they would eat them.
They save the bones of fish, snakes and
other animals that they may afterward
pound them together and eat the powder.
They plant nothing from which they
may profit" These people went fire.
quently three and four days without
eating, and some of the Spaniards dried
the flesh of their comrades as they died
and ate it. At certain seasons of the
year the natives went to localities where
walnuts (pecans) grew, to live on them,
and at others travelled to the interior to
eat the leaves and fruit of the cactus
plant. They ate the leaves baked and
the fruit in all in all stages, green, ripe
and dried. The prickly pear season was
their happiesU period as it was the only
time of the year in which they had
enough to eat. AS to their dress, the
men went naked and the women used a
moss that grew on the trees to cover
their nakedneSs. No mantlets of thread
but moss such as the swamps of Louis
ina and Texas furnish today, growing
on the pecan and cypress trees. In the
interior the women spent most of their
time in tending the ovens in which they
cooked the leaves of the cactus plant.
Sucn is description of the beings
with whom Nunez passed MS years of
and if Senator Moody is right
in his theory that Santa Rosa and NAL
hado are the same, they were neighbors
of the agricultural tribes of the Aprlache
country yet knew nothing OF agri-
culture themselves. A few years
the Spaniards left the vicinity of
Malhado the Spanish Captain Meldenado
spent two summers cruising along the
the coast of Florida, especially In the
vicinity of the island Santa Rosa, en-
deavoring to fulfill his instructions to
bring supplies to Soto, making frequent
landing and depositing letters, but N no
instance obtaining information Of any
Spaniards. Soto was shown by the In