In the course of their marvelous transcontinental journey, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions also approached Seriland, and apparently skirted its borders shortly before meeting Captain Diego de Alcaraz, of Guzman’s party; this was in April, 1536, according to Bandelier.[20] Vaca wrote: “On the coast is no maize: the inhabitants eat the powder of rush and of straw, and fish that is caught in the sea from rafts, not having canoes. With grass and straw the women cover their nudity. They are a timid and dejected people.”[21] He added half a dozen ambiguous sentences, of which only a part, apparently, refer to the “timid and dejected people”; half of these describe a poison used by them “so deadly that if the leaves be bruised and steeped in some neighboring water, the deer and other animals drinking it soon burst”. The people were identified as Seri (Ceris) by Buckingham Smith and General Stone,[22] and the identification may be considered as strongly probable, provided the Tepoka be classed with the Seri. [20] Contributions to the History of the Southwestern Portion of the United States (Hemenway Southwestern Archæological Expedition), Papers of the Archæological Institute of America, American series, V, 1890, p. 44. [21] Relation of Alvar Nuñez Cabeça de Vaca, translated from the Spanish by Buckingham Smith; New York, 1871, p. 172. [22] Ibid, p. 178. The next Caucasians to approach Seriland appear to have been the two Spanish monks, Fray Pedro Nadal and Fray Juan de la Asuncion, who, in 1538, sought to retrace Vaca’s route, and traveled northward to a river somewhat doubtfully identified as the Gila;[23] but the meager accounts of this journey contain no clear reference to the Seri Indians. [23] Cf. Bandelier, Magazine of Western History, IV, 1886, p. 660.