Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/522

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490
CABEZA DE VACA
CABLE

They made their way to a tribe called the Avavares, among whom they passed eight months, and then to the Arbadaos, whose seat was near the Rio Grande. They shaped their course westward in hope of falling in with some Spanish expedition on the Rio Panuco or the Pacific coast. Cabeza de Vaca taught the others to treat diseases, and thus they were able to travel as successful medicine-men from tribe to tribe. Besides using curative herbs, empirical methods of surgery, and the signs and incantations of Indian sorcerers, they called in the aid of the cross and of Catholic prayers. The cures that they accomplished were attributed by them to the miraculous interposition of Providence. They followed a large river, probably the Rio Grande, passed through tribes of bison-hunters, without entering the bison-range themselves, and traversed high mountains, where people lived in houses of sods and clay, and were in possession of turquoises and cotton cloth obtained from the people farther north, and finally fell in with some Sjmnish ex- plorers on the river Petatlan, and on 12 May, 1586, reached the town of San Miguel de Caliacan in Sinaloa. Their course was formerly supposed to have been through New Mexico, from Cabeza's mention of bison-hunters and people that mined the turquoise; but, since he spoke of these tribes as living in the north, and gives no account of the Staked Plain, others have traced the route through southern Texas and the Mexican states of Chi- huahua and Sonora. The account that they gave of nations dwelling in permanent houses impelled Coronado, the governor of New Galicia, to under- take the exploration of the northern countries, and to send on a preliminary journey of discovery Fray Marcos, of Nizza, who, with the negro Stephen for his guide, entered the kingdom of Cibola, the coun- try of the civilized Pueblo Indians. A joint report of the misfortunes of the Narvaez expedition, and of the wanderings of the four survivors, was made by Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo, and Dorantes, to the royal audiencia of Santo Domingo, given in Oviedo's " Historia general y natural de Indias." A narra- tive of his adventures was published by Cabeza de Vaca at Zamora in 1542. The mysterious secrecy that Cabeza at first observed, in regard to the na- tions he visited, excited the adventurous spirit of De Soto and his companions, who, in 1538, left Spain to explore and take possession of Florida. Cabeza de Vaca's relation of the adventures of the Narvaez expedition was reprinted at Valladolid in 1555, and under the usually cited title of " Nau- fragios de Alvar Nufiez de Vaca," in Barcia's col- lection of narratives printed in 1749. An Italian translation was included in Ramusio's collection (1556), and an English version in Purchas's " Pil- grims." A French rendering was published by Terneaux-Compans. A literal English translation was made by Buckingham Smith and privately printed at Washington in 1857, and published, in a revised form, in a limited edition in 1871. After his return to Spain, in 1537, Cabeza de Vaca was appointed administrator of La Plata. He sailed for that colony, was shipwrecked, landed on the coast of Paraguay, and was tlie first explorer of that country. He passed through the country of the Guaranis, whom he made his friends, and who assisted him to descend the river Plata. On 15 March, 1542, he established his headquarters at Asuncion. The next year an insurrection broke out in consequence of a fire, his subordinates charg- ing him with undue lenience toward the Indian incendiaries. He arrested the leaders in the mu- tiny, and sent them as prisoners to Spain. He re- duced to subjection the Payagoaes, who murdered Ayolas and eighty of his followers, explored the Iguayu river, and subjugated the tribes on its banks ; but was beaten by the Socorinis and Agaces, who killed ^ixty-three of his men. On the accusa- tion of Domingo de Irala, his lieutenant, he was arrested in 1544, taken to Spain, and condemned by the council of the Indies to banishment to Africa. Eight years later he was pardoned and recalled by the king, who assigned him an annual pension, and made him judge of the supreme court of Seville, where lie resided until his death.


CABEZAS ALTAMIRANO, Juan de las (kah-bay'-thas), Cuban prelate, b. in Zamora, Spain, in the latter part of the 16th century; d. in 1615. He was appointed bisliop of Cuba and Florida in Feb- ruary, 1602. In April, 1604, while visiting his dio- cese in the eastern part of Cuba, he was surprised near Yara by the French pirate, Gilbert Giron, who held him and his suite in captivity for eighty days. He was ransomed, and the peasants afterward fell on Giron and his troops, routed them, and killed the pirate. Cabezas was the first bishop that ever visited Florida. He was appointed, in 1610, bishop of Guatemala, and afterward bishop of Ai'equipa, Peru, but died before assuming that office.


CABLE, George Washington, author, b. in New Orleans, La., 12 Oct., 1844. On his father's side he springs from an old family of colonial Vir- ginia. The Cabells originally spelled the name Cable, and their ancient coats of arms introduce the cable as an accessory. His mother was of old New England stock. The family re- moved to New Orleans soon af- ter the financial crisis of 1837, and for a time the father prospered in business. In 1859 he failed, and died shortly afterward, leav- ing the family in such strait- ened circum- stances that the son was obliged to leave school and seek employ- ment as a clerk. He was thus en- gaged until 1863,

when, though

very slight and youthful in his appearance and but nineteen years of age, he volunteered in the Confederate service, joining the 4th Mississippi cavalry. He employed the leisure of camp-life in study, but saw his share of active service, and is described as a good and daring soldier. He was wounded in the left arm, and narrowly escaped with his life. Returning penniless to New Orleans, after the overthrow of the Confederacy, he began to earn a living as an errand-boy in a mercantile house, and varying fortune sent him to Kosciusko, Miss., and subsequently, after he had studied civil-engineering, to the Teche country, where he was attached to a surveying expedition on the levees of the Atchafalaya. There he caught the malarial fever peculiar to the region, and did not fully recover for two years. During this time he collected material that has since done good literary service. He began writing for the New Orleans " Picayune " over the pen-name of "Drop Shot," contributing critical and humorous papers and occasionally a poem, and he