Note 110 — Chapter 16

The identification of Malhado Island is a difficult problem. On general principles Galveston Island would seem to supply the conditions, in that it more likely would have been inhabited by two distinct tribes, perhaps representing distinct linguistic families, as it is known to have been occupied by Indians (the Karankawa) at a later period, besides having the smaller island or islands behind it. But its size and the other conditions are not in favor of the identification, for its length is at least twice as great as that of Malhado, as given in the narrative, and it is also more than two leagues from its nearest end to the first stream that the Spaniards crossed after departing from the island (Oviedo, p. 593). Mr. James Newton Baskett suggests that the so-called Velasco Island, next south of Galveston Island, better fulfils the requirements, as indeed it does topographically, except for the fact that it is really a peninsula. Aside from this, it possesses all the physical features,—length and width, distance from the first stream to the southward, and having the necessary island or islands (Mud and San Luis) off its northern shore. Accepting Mr. Baskett's determination, it is not difficult to account for the four streams, "very large and of rapid current," one of which flowed directly into the gulf. Following the journey of the Spaniards from the island, down the coast, in April, when the streams were swollen by flood, the first river was crossed in two leagues after they had reached the mainland. This was evidently Oyster Creek. Three leagues farther was another river, running so powerfully that one of the rafts was driven to sea more than a league. This fully agrees with the Brazos, which indeed is the only large stream of the landlocked Texas coast that flows directly into the gulf. Four leagues still farther they reached another river, where the boat of the comptroller and the commissary was found. From this fact it may be assumed that this stream also flowed into the open gulf, a condition satisfied by Caney Creek. The San Bernardo may well have escaped notice in travelling near the coast, from the fact that it flows into Cedar Lake. Five or six leagues more brought them to another large river (the Colorado), which the Indians carried them across in a canoe; and in four days they reached the bay of Espíritu Santo (La Vaca Bay?). "The bay was broad, nearly a league across. The side toward Pánuco [the south] forms a point running out nearly a quarter of a league, having on it some large white sand-stacks which it is reasonable to suppose can be descried from a distance at sea, and were consequently thought to mark the River Espíritu Santo." After two days of exertion they succeeded in crossing the bay in a broken canoe; and at the end of twelve leagues they came to a small bay not more than the breadth of a river. Here they found Figueroa, the only survivor of the four who had attempted to return to Mexico. The distance from Malhado Island is given as sixty leagues, consequently the journey from the Colorado to the bay now reached, which seems to be no other than San Antonio Bay, covered thirty-two to thirty-three leagues. Lofty sand dunes, such as those seen on what we regard as perhaps La Vaca Bay, occur on San Antonio Bay. See United States Coast Survey Report for 1859, p. 325. The western shore of the bay is a bluff or bank of twenty feet. "At one place on this side, a singular range of sand-hills, known as the Sand-mounds, approaches the shore. The highest peak is about seventy-five feet above the bay."