HOW NEW MEXICO CAME TO BE EXPLORED.
"Northward, beyond the mountains we will go,
Where rocks lie covered with eternal snow."
In the disasters of Narvaez and De Soto, the movement from the side of Florida towards the West had met with an untimely check. But, strangely enough, it made progress in another quarter through these very misfortunes.
For while De Soto was vainly seeking for gold on that side, his countrymen were bestirring themselves in the same business in a quite different direction, as we shall see.
ROCK INSCRIPTIONS, NEW MEXICO.
At this time it was Don Antonio de Mendoza who was the emperor's viceroy in Mexico. Now Mendoza aimed to gain distinction with his sovereign by being the first who should discover and make known to the world, all the unexplored region lying north of Mexico, which was accounted as rich as any yet known to the Spaniards. Most of all, perhaps, Mendoza wished to find the land's end in that northern direction, as by doing so he would complete the work of putting a girdle round the continent, and gain the glory of it for himself.
Various efforts were making to do this both by land and sea.[1] And curiously enough these efforts came from the West.