On returning to the shore, he missed his ships, and after traveling westward on foot for a month, built five rude vessels, and once more put to sea.

For six weeks the little fleet hugged the shore, till it came to the mouth of the Mississippi, where two of the boats were upset and Narvaez was drowned.

The rest reached the coast of Texas in safety.

But famine and the tomahawk soon reduced the number of the survivors to four.

These were captured by bands of wandering Indians, were carried over eastern Texas and western Louisiana, till, after many strange adventures and vicissitudes, they met beyond the Sabine River.[1] Protected by the fame they had won for sorcery, and led by one Cabeza de Vaca, they now wandered westward to the Rio Grande[2] (ree'-o grahn'-da) and on by Chihuahua (chee-wah'-wah) and Sonora to the Gulf of California, and by this to Culiacan, a town near the west coast of Mexico, which they reached in 1536.