94 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



dined natives, acquired the "swelled head" charac- 

 teristic of his race, and proceeded to seal unto him- 

 self many — too many — of their women in tempor- 

 ary marriage. Then as he strolled proudly on his 

 way, arrayed like Solomon in all his glory but lack- 

 ing the wisdom of Solomon in that he paraded his 

 wives as well as his jewels, he met a fate tragic yet 

 to be expected. A black man hung with precious 

 stones and followed by native women held in bond- 

 age, who furthermore proclaimed himself the em- 

 missary of a great white King, proved in the end too 

 big a pill for the wise men of Cibola to swallow, so 

 poor Estevanico was violantly eliminated like the ne- 

 gro of later days under circumstances not wholly 

 dissimilar. Fray Nica, following after, judiciously 

 tarried outside the pueblo, and made short work of 

 his tarrying too, taking time only to plant the ban- 

 ner of Spain on a nearby mountain and then fleeing 

 southward "with more fear than victuals." 



And like Fray Marcos I too must hurry on, lest 

 the fascination of New Mexican history should en- 

 trap me — merely remarking that the two oldest 

 Missions in the United States, although unfortu- 

 nately in partial or total ruin, are to be found in 

 New Mexico on the site of ancient towns or pueblos 

 which are yielding valuable rewards to archaeolo- 

 gists and excavators. These Missions are at least 

 one hundred and fifty years older than the Missions 

 in California. 



Hatred of the Spaniards culminated early in the 

 nineteenth century, as again in the twentieth, in the 

 Mexican revolution, and the Spanish priests were 



