They tried to learn the natives' language, and often questioned the people about the country. All that they heard they repeated to their leaders, who, finding there was much gold in the northwest, resolved to go in search of it. A party headed by Narvaez (nar-vah´eth) set out, therefore, to explore and conquer the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
But Narvaez was very unfortunate. While he was inland his ships sailed on, and when he came back to the shore they were out of sight. Painfully making his way along through the tangled woods for many miles, he finally reached the coast again and built a second fleet. This, however, was wrecked at the mouth of the Mississippi ("The Father of Waters"), where Narvaez was drowned.
Four of the followers of Narvaez, narrowly escaping death, soon after fell into the hands of the Indians. By pretending to be magicians, these men made the Indians fear them. They lived eight years among various savage tribes, wandering all across the continent to the Gulf of Cal-i-for´ni-a, and finally came back to Mexico, where their leader, Cabeza de Vaca (cah-bā´sah dā vah´cah), told their adventures to the Spaniards. He was the first European to visit the region between the Mississippi and California, and it is said that he tramped more than ten thousand miles during those eight years of captivity.
The tales told by Vaca and his companions made the Spaniards long to visit the country and find the Seven Cities of Cibola (see´bo-lah), where they fancied they could secure much gold. A priest named Mar´cōs therefore set out to question and convert the natives. Taking one of Vaca's companions, a negro servant, as guide, Marcos wandered on foot into New Mexico, where he saw from afar seven Zuñi (zoo´nyee) pueblos, or villages.
Hearing from the Indians that these were the Seven Cities of Cibola, he went back to report what he had seen. A Spaniard named Coronado (co-ro-nah´tho) now set out with an army of about two hundred and fifty men. He made his way into the new country, visited the Cibola pueblos, and hearing wonderful tales of Acoma (ah´co-ma), a city built in the skies, set out to find it. After many hardships, he and his little army came into a wide valley, in the center of which rose a huge rock, with straight sides more than three hundred feet high, and with a broad flat top of about seventy acres.
On the top of this rock the Indians had built one of their cliff dwellings, which they reached by narrow rocky stairways. Coronado visited this strange city, but finding the people poor, and hearing there was gold farther north, he pressed on, and even came to the Grand Canyon of the Col-o-ra´do.
While Coronado was thus exploring much of the southwestern part of our country, another Spaniard, De So´to,—who had helped conquer Peru,—set out from Cuba with nine vessels and an army of nearly a thousand men. He landed in Tam´pa Bay, and, searching for gold, wandered for three years through the forests of Florida, Geor´gi-a, Al-a-ba´ma, and Mississippi. Often attacked by hostile Indians, and suffering greatly from hunger and sickness, he nevertheless reached the Mississippi River, and crossed it near Lower Chick´a-saw Bluffs.
But he could not find the El Do-ra´do, or "Land of Gold," he was seeking, and after exploring the region between the Missouri and the Red rivers, and losing many men, he resolved to turn back. Before long, however, De Soto died of malaria (1541), and the Spaniards, after secretly burying him, told the Indians he had gone on a long journey. But when they saw that the savages did not believe them, and gazed suspiciously at the upturned soil, they began to fear the Indians would treat De Soto's remains shamefully.
