The representations of “the Turk,” on the contrary, sounded very differently. He talked of a river two leagues wide containing fish as large as a horse, on which canoes sailed with forty rowers, their bows richly adorned with gold. He declared that the vessels in that country were made of silver and gold. With keen craftiness he had watched the Spaniards, and had discovered that they esteemed gold more than copper, and had learned to appreciate the difference between the two metals even in weight. Gold, he intimated, was abundant at “Arche” or “Arahei,” but “Quivira” was the place to which he would take the Spaniards before all others, and where he promised them the precious metal in profusion.
The Rio Grande Valley was quiet, and Coronado set about beginning the march to Quivira. The whole army followed him, while Pedro de Tobar was in the meantime to come up with reinforcements from Sonora; for written orders had been left for him with the Indians of Zuñi to follow Coronado, guiding himself by the wooden crosses which he would erect from time to time. The Spaniards left Bernalillo May 5th, and entered Pecos on the 9th. The tribe received and entertained them gladly.
I have in the preceding pages referred to six linguistic stocks with which Coronado had so far come in contact in New Mexico. Only five of them have been named to this point, viz., those of Zuñi, Tigua, Piro, Pecos or Jemez, and Queres. The sixth is never designated with a name, but is inferred from the scanty account of the route from Bernalillo to Pecos.
This route is not hard to follow. Coronado could reach Pecos from the Rio Grande only by going up that river to the vicinity of San Felipe, and then turning in toward the pueblo of “Tunque.” There Alvarado had probably already come in contact with the Queres. In passing the Cañon del Infierno, the Spaniards would have become acquainted with Chilili, Tajique, Manzano, and with the remarkable salt basin beyond, of which they say nothing, and they would, moreover, be near the buffaloes, without touching Pecos. They also probably went by the “Paso de Tijeras” (the Scissors Pass) to San Pedro, where they found the pueblo of “Pä-qu”; from San Pedro to “Golden” (Real de San Francisco), where the pueblo of “Kaapô” (El Tuerto) stood, already almost deserted; and then past the pueblo of “Hî-shi” (Pueblo largo), south of Galisteó, to the Pecos Valley. They thereby avoided all the northern villages; and Casteñeda says, “They count seven other villages between this route and the Snowy Mountains (la Sierra Nevada).”
The Sierra Nevada is that wild, picturesque mountain system south of Santa Fé which parts into the three groups: the “Sierra del Real de Dolores,” the Sierra de San Francisco, and the Sierra de San Pedro. They lie east of the Sandía Mountain and parallel to it. These grand masses are often covered with snow early in the fall. The Sierra de Santa Fé, which contains the highest peak in New Mexico, is covered with snow nearly the whole year, and towers majestically over the other side of the basin of Galisteó. The seven pueblos which Casteñeda mentions were “Pânt-hâm-ba” (San Cristobal), “Tage-unge” or “Glisteó” (Galisteó), “I-pe-re” (San Lázaro), “Yâtzé” (San Marcos), “Tzigu-má” (la Ciénega), “Cuâ-câ” (Arroyo Hondo), and “Cuâ-po-oge” (Santa Fé). Their inhabitants belonged to the tribe of the “Tanos,” which spoke the “Tehua” language, and they thus formed the sixth linguistic and ethnographic district with which Coronado had become acquainted in May, 1541. To them belonged also the pueblos of “San Pedro,” of “El Tuerto,” the “Pueblo largo” (which the Apaches had destroyed five or six years before), and the villages south of “Tejon” (“Ojâna,” “Quipâna”) and “Tunque.” All these are to-day deserted and destroyed.
Pecos was the headquarters of the Spaniards for a little while. Quivira appears to have been known there, for the people gave them a young Indian whom they called “Xabe,” who was a native of Quivira. He said that gold and silver indeed occurred at his home, but not in such quantities as “the Turk” had pretended. Toward the middle of the month of May, 1541, Coronado started for Quivira and its supposed wealth of gold. The young Indian, “Xabe,” shared with “the Turk” the function of guide.
Till then the Spaniards had had to endure only the dangers and hindrances offered by mountains. Now they encountered difficulties of another kind such as they had not before met on the American continent. They were to enter upon the boundless plains, the endless uniformity of which, fatiguing to body and mind alike, slowly and surely unnerved and finally crushed them. For, uncertain as was their aim, still more uncertain was the end. While till this time the expedition had borne a character of fascinating boldness, the stamp of useless adventure, of wanton risk, is plainly impressed on the march to Quivira.
CHAPTER V.
QUIVIRA.
It is a well-known fact that lost travellers involuntarily walk circuitously, generally toward the right, and so gradually return to the place whence they started. This phenomenon is especially frequent in wide, treeless plains, where prominent objects by which the wanderer can direct himself are wanting. It has an extremely dangerous effect upon the mind, and may, if it occurs repeatedly, easily lead to despair and frenzy. What happens to individuals may also occur to a larger number. This was the fate of Coronado and his company when they sought and found Quivira. They returned in a wide bend to their starting-point, after they had wandered for months on the desolate plains, “led around in a circle as if by some evil spirit.”
Coronado, having completed all his preparations at Pecos, left that pueblo in the beginning of May, 1541, to go to the prairies. His general direction was northeast. On the fourth day he crossed a river that was so deep that they had to throw a bridge over it. This river was perhaps the Rio de Mora, and not, as I formerly thought, the little Gallinas, which flows by Las Vegas. The latter, an affluent of the Pecos, is too insignificant, while the Mora is tolerably rapid and deeper. But it was more probably the Canadian River, into which the Mora empties. Of the three accounts of the campaign which lie before me, Jaramillo’s is very confused, and that of Pedro de Casteñeda, which was written long after the event, must be used with scrutiny and caution, while the third letter of Coronado to Charles V. was composed immediately after the expedition, and thus records fresh, clear recollections. Coronado and Casteñeda, besides, agree in the principal points. Herrera has compiled from all the materials, and has used, among other sources, the anonymous “Relacion de los Sucesos de la Jornada,” etc. (1541). He is not less trustworthy as a source of information than Mota-Padilla.