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>ng before it became a field for politifia] contest with Prance,."
By way of the Gulf 2 There were four lines of, approach to Spanish Texas, through the development of which a knowledge of the region was gradually imfolded; (1) From the east and south, hy way of the Gulf of Mexico; (2) from the east, by way of the vast region known in ear y days as la, Florida;
(5) from the west and southwest, by way of Mew Mexico and Bueva Vizcaya; and (4) from the south, through the expansion of fluevo Leon and Coahuila."
5 There were numerous explorations around the Culr from 1519 and afterwards and some landings but no inland explorations worthy of notice.
By Way of Florida 4	1528,	de	Vaca	and	some	200	companions cast on the Texas shore.
1542 IIoscoso led the survivors of the J)e Soto expedition into Texas near the notth-east corner.
By ’Jay of Bew Mexico 5 ...."Until 1685 vestern Texas was much better known than the southern portion, lying nearer Mexioo, or than the eastern portion, commonly regarded as 'old' Texas."
Coronado is reported to have come by way of the Pacific slooe to Bew Mexico, "going, it is believed, from the upper Pecos river southeast-ward to the upper Colorado, thence north across the Brazos, bed, Canadian and Arkansas rivers, eastward into central Kansas, and directly back to the Pecos," This seems to indie :te t>r-1 Coronado followed the present course of the Old Span; sir SBrr. i? from the Pecos to the Brazos.
After Coronado four decades passed; the Spaniards then began approaching by way of the central Mexican plateau through Chihuahua and up the Hi o Grande or the Pecos.
(Best known expeditions) "Father xvodriguez in 1581, Pace jo in 1582, Castano de Sosa in 1590, Bonilla and Humana about 1595, and Juan de Onate,