Note II'-33 — Chapter II · ITINERARY, CONTINUED: THROUGH OLD MEXICO, IN CHIHUAHUA, DURANGO, AND COAHUILA, TO THE PRESIDIO GRANDE, MARCH 22D-MAY 31ST, 1807.
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No distance or direction given, and no place named—but we can discover Pike by extraneous means. Dr. Wislizenus says, p. 73: "From here [San Lorenzo] the road was winding over a hilly and rocky country, till we arrived in Cienega Grande, a hacienda of Don Rey de Guerrero, (25 miles from Parras.)" This is no doubt the place Pike reaches, on his way to Patos. The unnamed hacienda of the text is so marked on his map, on the above "fine stream." This creek requires attention. Pike lays it down as one of the headwaters of Rio Tigre, also called Rio San Francisco del Tigre, which he mistakes it to be, and so runs it off into the Gulf of Mexico, about where Tiger r. does in fact empty. But Pike was never on any tributary of Tiger r.—never in that watershed at all—never in Nuevo Leon. His "fine stream" is a headwater of that river which falls into the Rio Grande by Ringgold Barracks, and whose two main forks are known as Rio San Juan and Rio Salinas. Saltillo, once known as Leona Victoria, and present capital of Coahuila, is on a branch of the Salinas (Rio Meteros); and Monterey, present capital of Nuevo Leon, is on a branch of the San Juan.