While he was striving to find a way of reaching the main body of the expedition, which during this time was complacently robbing the Puebloans on the Rio Grande, two officers of that expedition were marching through the wilderness endeavouring to find him, and a third was travelling toward the Grand Canyon. One of these was Don Rodrigo Maldonado, thus bearing exactly the same name as one of Alarçon’s officers; another was Captain Melchior Diaz, and the third Don Lopez de Cardenas, who distinguished himself on the Rio Grande by particular brutality toward the villagers. Don Rodrigo went in search of the ships down the river to the coast from the valley of Corazones, but obtained no information of them, though he met with giant natives and brought back with him one very tall man as a specimen. The main army of Coronado had not yet gone from this valley of Corazones, where the settlement called San Hieronimo had been established, and the best man in it reached only to the chest of this native giant.
An Arizona Landscape.
There are Navajo Gardens at the bottom of this canyon.
Photograph by E.O. BEAMAN.
The army moved on to another valley, where a halt was made to await orders from the general. At length, about the middle of September, Melchior Diaz came back from Cibola, with dispatches, accompanied by Juan Gallegos, who bore a message for the viceroy. In their company also was the miserable Friar Marcos, pursuing his dismal return to New Spain by direction of the general, who considered it unsafe for him to remain with the army now that the glorious bubble of his imagination had been exploded. Melchior Diaz was an excellent officer, and already had an experience in this northern region extending over some four years. It was he, also, who had been sent, the previous November, as far as the place called Chichilticalli, in an attempt to verify the friar’s tale, and had reported that the natives were good for nothing except to make into Christians. The main army, which was in command of Don Tristan de Arellano, in accordance with the orders received from Coronado, now advanced toward Cibola. Maldonado, who had been to the coast, went with it. Diaz retained eighty men, part of whom were to defend the settlement of San Hieronimo, and twenty-five were to accompany him on his expedition in search of Alarçon. He started north and then went west, following native guides for 150 leagues (412½ miles) in all, and at length reached a country inhabited by giant natives who, in order to keep warm in the chill autumn air, carried about with them a firebrand. From this circumstance, Diaz called the large river he found here the Rio del Tizon. This was the Buena Guia of Alarçon. The natives were prodigiously strong, one man being able to lift and carry with ease on his head a heavy log which six of the soldiers could not transport to the camp. Here Diaz heard that boats had come up the river to a point three days’ journey below, and he went there to find out about it, doubtless expecting to get on the track of Alarçon. But the latter had departed from the mouth of the river at least two or three weeks before; one writer says two months.[[5]] The same writer states that Diaz reached the river thirty leagues above the mouth, and that Alarçon went as far again above. This coincides very well with Alarçon’s estimate of eighty-five leagues, for Diaz did not follow the windings of the stream as Alarçon was forced to do with his boats. At the place down the river, Diaz found a tree bearing an inscription: “Alarçon reached this point; there are letters at the foot of this tree.” Alarçon does not, as before noted, mention burying letters, and these were found at the foot of a tree, so that Diaz evidently failed to reach the cross erected at Alarçon’s highest point.
[5] Relacion del Suceso. Alarçon must have reached his highest point about October 5th or 6th, and the ships on the return about the 10th. Diaz probably arrived at the river about November 1st.
Cocopa Tule Raft.
Photograph by DELANCY GILL.
Diaz now proceeded up the river again, looking for a place where he could safely cross to explore the country on the opposite side. After ascending from the spot where he found the letters for five or six days, he concluded they could cross by means of rafts. In the construction of these rafts he invited the help of the natives of the neighbourhood. He was probably up near the Chocolate Mountains and the Cumanas, who were hostile to Alarçon, and whose sorcerer had attempted to destroy him by means of the magic reeds. They had been merely waiting for an opportunity to attack Diaz, and they perceived their chance in this assistance in crossing the river. They readily agreed to help make the rafts, and even to assist in the crossing. But while the work was in progress a soldier who had gone out from the camp was surprised to observe a large number of them stealing off to a mountain on the other side. When he reported this, Diaz caused one of the natives to be secured, without the others being aware of it. He was tortured till he confessed that the plan was to begin the attack when some of the Spaniards were across the river, some in the water, and the others on the near bank. Thus separated they believed they could easily be destroyed. The native, as a reward for this valuable confession, was secretly killed, and that night, with a heavy weight tied to him, was cast into the deep water. But the others evidently suspected the trick, for the next day they showered arrows upon the camp. The Spaniards pursued them and by means of their superior arms soon drove them into the mountains. Diaz was then able to cross without molestation, his faithful Amerind allies of another tribe assisting.