coEON ado's march. 321 



the Turk had said conld be fouud there. Its route was via Cicuy6, 

 twenty-five leagues distant. The fourth day after leaving Cicuye and 

 crossing some mountains it reached a large and very deep river, which 

 passed prett\^ near to Cicuye, and was therefore called the Eio de Cicuye. 

 Here it was delayed four days to build a bridge. Ten days after, on 

 their march, they discovered some tents of tanned buffalo skins, inhabited 

 by Indians who were like Arabs, and who were called Querechaos; 

 continuing their march in a northeastwardly direction they soon came 

 to a village in which Cabeca de Vaca and Dorantes (mentioned in the 

 first part of this paper) had" passed through on their way from Florida 

 to Mexico.* The army met with and killed an incrediible number of 

 buftal0;t and after reaching a point 250 leagues (850 miles) from Tiguex, 

 the provision giving out, Coronado, with thirty horsemen and six foot- 

 soldiers, continued his march in search of Quivira, while the rest of the 

 army returned to Tiguex under the commandof Don Tristan d'Arellano. 

 The narrative goes on to say : " The guides conducted the general to 

 Quivira in forty-eight days, for they had traveled too much in the direc- 

 tion of Florida. At Quivira they found neither gold nor silver, and 

 learning from the Turk that he had, at the instance of the i)eople of 

 Cicuye, purposely decoyed the armj' far into the plains to kill the horses, 

 and thus make the men helpless and fall an easy prej" to the natives, 

 and that all he had said about the great quantity of silver and gold to 

 be found there was false, they strangled him. The Indians of^this 

 region, so far from having large quantities of gold and silver, did not 

 even know these metals. The Cacique wore on his breast a copper i)late, 

 of which he made a great i^arade, which he would not have done had he 

 known anything about those precious metals. The army, as stated 

 above, retreated to Tiguex before reaching Quivira. They took as 

 , guides some Teyaus, through whose country they were i)assing, and 

 were led back by a much more direct way than that they pursued in 

 coming. These Teyans were a nomadic nation, and being constantly in 

 the pursuit of game knew the country perfectly." It is narrated they 

 guided the army thus : Every morning they watched to note where the 

 sun rose, and directed their way by shooting an arrow in advance, and 

 then before reaching this arrow they discharged another; in this way 

 they marked the whole of their route to the spot where Avater was to be 

 found, and where they encami^ed. "The army consumed only twenty- 



*" It will be recollected that it was on Information given by these persons and two 

 others, Maldonado and the negro Estevan, that this expedition was fonnded. (See 

 ante p. 310.) 



t The following minute and graphic description of the buffalo, seen by Coronado and 

 his army, is taken from Gomara, as quoted in Haklnyt's Voyages, vol. iii. " Tiieso oxen 

 are of the bigness and color of our bulls, but their horns are not so great. They have 

 a great bunch upon their fore-shoulders, and more hair upon their fore part than on 

 their hinder part ; and it is like wool. They have, as it were, a horse mane upon their 

 back bone, and nuich hair, and very long from the knees downward. They luive great 

 tufts of hair hanging down their foreheads, and it secmeth they liave beards, because 

 of the great store of hair hanging down at their chins and throats. The males have 

 very long tails, and a great knob or flock at the end, so that in some res^iects they 

 resemble the lion, and in some other the camel. They push with their horns, they run, 

 they overtake and kill a horse when they are in their rage and anger. Finally, it is a 

 fierce beast of countenance and form of body. The horses lied from them, either be- 

 cause of their deformed shape, or else because they had never seen them. Their mas- 

 ters ho,ve no other riches nor substance ; of them they eat, they drink, they apparel, 

 they shoe themselves ; and of their hides they make many things, as houses, shoes, 

 apparel, and ropes ; of their bones they make bodkins ; of their sinews and hair, thread ; 

 of their horns, maws and bladders, vessels ; of their dung, lire ; and of their calf skins, 

 budgets, wherein they draw and keep water. To be short, they make so many thinga 

 of them as they have need of, or as may suffice them in the use of this life." 



21 SG9 



