LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 141 



the riches of the country in which they had located them- 

 selves, the governors of Mexico despatched armed expedi- 

 tions under adventurous desperadoes to take and retain 

 possession of the said country, with orders to compel the 

 submission of the native tribes, and enforce their obedience 

 to the authority of the whites that the simple and confid- 

 ing Indians began to see the folly they had committed in 

 permitting the residence amongst them of these superior 

 beings, whom they had first looked upon as more than 

 mortal ; but who, when strong enough to do so, were not 

 long in throwing off the mask, and proving to the simple 

 savages that they were much " more human than divine." 

 Thus, in the province of New Mexico, Fray Augustin 

 Kuiz, with his co-preachers, Marcos and Venabides, were 

 kindly received by the native inhabitants, and we have 

 seen how one million (?) Indians came from the " rumbo " 

 of the Cibolo, ready and willing to receive the baptismal 

 sacrament. This Cibolo, or Sivulo, as it is written in some 

 old MSS., is, by the way, mysteriously alluded to by the 

 monkish historians who have written on this region, as 

 being a kingdom inhabited by a very superior class of 

 Indians to any met with between Anahuac and the vale of 

 Taos in the enjoyment of a high state of civilisation, in- 

 habiting a well-built city, the houses of which were three 

 storeys high, and having attained considerable perfection 

 in the domestic arts. This, notwithstanding the authority 

 of Don Francisco Vasquez Coronado, who visited Cibolo, 

 and of Solis and Venegas, who have guaranteed the asser- 

 tion, must be received cum grano salis ; but, at all events, 

 the civilisation of the mysterious Cibolo may be compared 

 to that of the Aztec empire under Montezuma, at the time 

 of the Spanish Conquest, both being egregiously exagger- 

 ated by the historians of the day. Cibolo was situated on 

 a river called Tegue. At this day, neither name is known 

 to the inhabitants of New Mexico. If pate-shaven Vena- 

 bides had held his tongue, New Mexico might now be in 

 the peaceful possession of the Catholic Missions, and the 

 property of the Church of Mexico pretty considerably en- 

 hanced by the valuable placeres, or gold- washings, which 



