Welcome to Cabeza de Baca.

Episode 19, the inexplicable term.

I'm Brandon Seale.

When the Narvaise expedition departed Cuba in March of 1528, its destination had been the so-called Rio de las Palmas, or the modern-day Soto La Marina, a river which lies about halfway between Brownsville and Tampico.

Castilian knowledge of the geography of the Gulf Coast in 1528 was pretty limited.

The only man, who had even claimed to have sailed around the Gulf, was the Narvice Expedition

pilot, who went on to demonstrate his chops by high-centering the expedition's ships on some

shallow sandbars three days onto the job, and then unloading the expedition on the western

coast of Florida instead of the

eastern coast of Mexico.

But there was one geographical feature that apparently everyone on the expedition knew to look for

in identifying the Rio de las Palmas.

Mountains that were visible from the sea.

This seems to be why Cabesa de Vaca makes two conspicuous mentions in his account of places

where he didn't see mountains, namely Florida and the prickly pear ranges of South Texas.

It's a strange thing, of course, to mention a topographical feature that you don't see,

unless, of course, it's precisely the topographical feature that

you're looking for.

Then, in the summer of 1535, seven years into their residency on the American continent,

the four remaining Narvaise Expeditionaries and their growing entourage of native companions,

quote, began to see mountains which seemed as if they ran in a line to the coast, end quote.

These mountains, they learned, were only about 50 miles from the sea, which meant they would have been visible from a passing ship.

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