Seeking information regarding their route westward, the Spaniards were told that “the path was along up by that river [the Rio Grande] towards the north, for otherwise in a journey of seventeen days we could find nothing to eat, except a fruit they call _chacan_, that is ground between stones, and even then it could with difficulty be eaten for its dryness and pungency,—which was true. They showed it to us there, and we could not eat it. They informed us also that, whilst we traveled by the river upward, we should all the way pass through a people that were their enemies, who spoke their tongue, and, though they had nothing to give us to eat, they would receive us with the best good will, and present us with mantles of cotton, hides, and other articles of their wealth.... Their method of cooking is so new that for its strangeness I desire to speak of it; thus it may be seen and remarked how curious and diversified are the contrivances and ingenuity of the human family. Not having discovered the use of pipkins, to boil what they would eat, they fill the half of a large calabash with water, and throw on the fire many stones of such as are most convenient and readily take the heat. When hot, they are taken up with tongs of sticks and dropped into the calabash until the water in it boils from the fervor of the stones. Then whatever is to be cooked is put in, and until it is done they continue taking out cooled stones and throwing in hot ones. Thus they boil their food.” We dwell thus at length on Cabeza de Vaca’s account, as it is the first reference to the Jumano in history, and because it affords the earliest information as to what manner of people they were. There are few Indian tribes, whose history forms part of that of our own land, that have a record traceable to the first half of the sixteenth century.[3] The next Spaniards to pass through the Jumano country were Francisco Sanchez Chamuscado and his party in company with three missionaries, in 1581; but no new light is thrown on the tribe in question, and indeed there is no definite evidence in the account of two of the soldiers[4] who were members of the little party that they were seen at all, although the Rio Grande was followed northward from its junction with the Conchos.