Note II'-27 — Chapter II · ITINERARY, CONTINUED: THROUGH OLD MEXICO, IN CHIHUAHUA, DURANGO, AND COAHUILA, TO THE PRESIDIO GRANDE, MARCH 22D-MAY 31ST, 1807.

"Brasses" and "Brassos" are Pike's rendering of Brazos, name of a great river in Texas, but the stream here meant by "Brasses" is Rio Nasas (or Nazas), which flows into Laguna del Muerto, in Coahuila. This he elsewhere calls Nassas and Nassus; saying that it runs into Lake Cayman, and forms part of the boundary between Cogquilla (Coahuila) and New Biscay (his name for Chihuahua, though he means Durango). He also charts it conspicuously, but much out of drawing: see his map, first river E. of Mapimi, with "Rancho Sn Antonio" there lettered. Some of my maps, running back 40 years, apply the name Nazas to that other stream (Rio Guanabal) which sinks in Laguna de Parras, and which Pike also charts, greatly out of position; but he is correct in his identification of the Nasas. This is a notable stream in Durango and Coahuila, which has been called "the vein and center of the Bolson" by Wislizenus, who says further, p. 69: "San Sebastian is a hacienda on the left bank of the Nasas river, and about 35 miles from Mapimi. The Nasas is here quite a deep and respectable stream, while further down it becomes flat, and disappears sometimes entirely in the sand. It comes about 150 leagues from the western part of the State of Durango, from the so-called Sianori mountains.... The Nasas is the Nile of the Bolson de Mapimi; the wide and level country along the river is yearly inundated by its rising, and owes to that circumstance its great fertility."

On crossing Rio Nasas, or at a point on his road in that vicinity, Pike passes from the present State of Durango into that of Coahuila; but we have no mileage for the 13th. He never leaves Coahuila till he enters the Texas of his day, close to present San Antonio de Bexar, Tex. He never touches Nuevo Leon at any point.