Much more definite information, however, is afforded by the next Spaniards to traverse their territory, led by Antonio de Espejo, who, in November, 1582, set out from San Bartolomé, in Chihuahua, and followed the bank of the Rio Grande northward from the mouth of the Conchos. From about the junction onward for twelve days’ journey Espejo was among these people, who, he says, occupied five villages with an aggregate population of ten thousand—perhaps four-fold the actual number, as Espejo’s estimates are always greatly exaggerated. The Jumano did not at first receive the strangers with the same friendliness as was shown Cabeza de Vaca and his companions, although it might be said that the latter met with a reception, owing to the magic power that they were supposed to possess and the awe inspired by it, such as perhaps has never been experienced by white men since their time. Espejo gives a rather definite account of the Indians under discussion, who, it will be observed, occupied the valley of the Rio Grande from the Conchos northward almost to the boundary of the present New Mexico. He says they were called Jumanos, and by the Spaniards Patarabueyes. Some of their houses were terraced, while others were of straw. The faces of the Indians were striated, evidently meaning tattooed, as the sequel will show. They cultivated maize, calabashes, and beans; hunted animals and birds, and especially the buffalo, and caught fish of many kinds in the two streams that united within their territory. They had lakes within their domain, from which they obtained salt during certain seasons as good as that from the sea. Of special importance in the identification of the people met by Cabeza de Vaca, Espejo states that three Christians and a negro had passed through the Jumano country years before, in whom he naturally recognized “Alvaro Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, y Dorantes, y Castillo Maldonado, y un negro,” who, as is well known, finally reached Culiacan and the City of Mexico after trials and suffering almost beyond belief.[5] Juan de Oñate, colonizer of New Mexico and founder of Santa Fé, passed over Espejo’s route for a part of his journey through Chihuahua to the new province, but instead of traversing the Conchos to its junction with the Rio Grande, he made a more northerly course to the crossing of the latter stream at the present El Paso, consequently leaving the country of the Jumano on his right. Whether the Jumano had entirely shifted their habitat between 1582 and 1598 is not definitely known, but it seems probable that they had not. Espejo had returned to Mexico by way of the Rio Pecos, leaving it for the Conchos some 120 leagues below Pecos pueblo, hence missing the Jumano territory of eastern New Mexico which later became known. And, as we have seen, Oñate did not follow a course in the journey northward with his colonists that would have enabled him to see the Jumano of the Conchos-Rio Grande junction.