Fray Marcos hastened to make his plans, and on the seventh of March, 1539, he set out from Culiacan with the negro Stephen and a few faithful Indians.
Several months went by; then, at the end of September, 1539, a traveler in a monk’s gown came walking alone into Culiacan.
“It is Fray Marcos!” cried the people. “It is Fray Marcos, who went to search for the Seven Cities!” “Did you find them, Fray Marcos?” “Where is Stephen, the negro?” “Are the Seven Cities full of wealth?”
But Fray Marcos would not answer. “I have much to tell,” he said to them, “but I will tell it only to the Lord de Mendoza himself.”
To the Lord de Mendoza he told a story even more wonderful than the story of Tejos, the Indian, or that of Cabeza de Vaca.
“All the way,” he said, “I found great entertainment, for after I told the Indians they were not to be enslaved, they could not do enough to show their love for me. I went where the Holy Ghost did lead me. The Indians guided me from place to place, and some went ahead to tell others that I was coming. Everywhere they came to meet me and gave me welcome. They had food ready for me; and where there were no houses, they built bowers of trees and flowers that I might rest safe from the sun.
“I saw naught that was worthy of notice until there came to me some Indians from an island off the coast, and these wore about their necks great shells that were of mother-of-pearl. To these I showed the pearls which I carried with me for show, and they told me that in their islands there were great stores of such, and that there were thirty islands.
“And then I passed through a desert of four days’ journey, and there went with me the Indians from the island and from the mountains I had passed. At the end of this desert I found other Indians, who marveled much to see me, because they had not before seen a white man. They gave me great stores of food and sought to touch my garments, and called me Hayota, which in their language means ‘A man come from Heaven.’
“As best I could, I told to all these Indians of our Lord God in Heaven, and of our great Emperor over the sea. Then I asked them if they knew of any great kingdom thereabout or of any great cities.
“And they told me that farther on were high mountains, and at the foot of those mountains was a large and mighty plain on which were many great towns and people clad in cotton. Then I showed them metals that I carried with me and said to them, ‘Have the people of those cities any of these?’ And they took the gold metal from my hand and said: ‘Of this do the people of those cities make the vessels from which they eat, and also do they make of it thin plates to scrape the sweat from their bodies, and the walls of their temples are covered therewith.’