316 



who made signs to him to return down the river, but by good manage- 

 ment he so appeased them that he was enabled to reach a distance 

 above the mouth of the river, such that in two and a half days, on his 

 return to the ships, on account of the swiftness of the current, he made 

 the same distance he had in fifteen and a half days in ascending the 

 river. On this expedition he learned from the Indians he met, some 

 particulars of the death of the negro Stephen, before referred to, at 

 Cibola, and of there being white persons like themselves at that place, 

 who doubtless belonged to Coronado's army. Alarcon was, however, 

 unable to communicate with the army on account of the desert inter- 

 vening between them, and the great distance they were apart. 



Refitting all his shallops this time for a second voyage up the river, 

 he left its mouth on the 14th of September, but was no more successful 

 in this than in his former expedition in communicating with Coronado. 

 Having, therefore, reached as far up the river as he thought expedient, 

 he planted a cross at that point, and deposited at its foot some letters, 

 in the hope that some persons of Coronado's army, searching for news 

 of the vessels, might find them. These letters, it has already been stated, 

 were found by Melchior Diaz on the liio del Tizon, called by Alarcon 

 the "Bon Guide," after the device of his lordship Don Antonio de Meii- 

 do9a, and at the present day the Eio Colorado. 



At the end of Alarcon's relation to the viceroy he reports that he 

 found the latitude, as given by the "patrons and pilots of the Marquis 

 del Valle," wrong by two degrees ; that he had gone further by four de- 

 grees than they, and that he had ascended the river a distance of eighty - 

 five leagues.* This report of Alarcon's is very interesting from its great 

 particularity and the many incidents it gives of the expedition ; it shows 

 also that he was fully equal to the trust committed to him, and that 

 no explorer could have done more to carry out the orders of the Viceroy 

 Mendoa. 



We will now return to the army under Coronado, at Cibola. This 

 general immediately set to work to explore the adjacent country. Hear- 

 ing there was a province in which there were seven towns similar to 

 those of Cibola, he dispatched hither Don Pedro de Tobar with seven- 

 teen horsemen, three or four soldiers, and Friar Juan de Padilla, a Fran- 

 ciscan, who had been a soldier in his youth, to explore it. " The rumor 

 had spread among its inhabitants that Cibola was captured by a very 

 ferocious race of people who bestrode horses that devoured men, and as 

 they knew nothing of horses, this information filled them with the greatest 

 astonishuient."t They, however, made some show of resistance to the 

 invaders in their approach to their towns, but the Spaniards charging 

 upon them with vigor, many were killed, when the remainder fled to the 

 houses and sued for peace, offering, as an inducement, presents of cotton 

 stuff, tanned hides, flour, pine nuts, niaize, native fowls, and some 

 turquoises. 



These people informing the Spaniards of a great river on which there 



long, is now reached, and in it the rapids are numerous and difficult. Calville is some 

 six miles above the head of this canon." (Letter of General A. A. Humphreys, Chief 

 of Corps of Engineers United States Army, to Secretary of War, June '24, 1868, in his 

 annual report for 1868, part 2, p. 1195.) 



* Alarcon's orders from the Viceroy Mendoca, as before stated, in a note, were to 

 explore as high as the 36th degree of latitude. According to his own account of the 

 distance he went up the Rio del Tizou, (Colorado,) he must have explored as far as 

 about the 34th degree, and if he went no higher up than where Melchior Diaz found 

 the tree, at the foot of which were letters from Alarcon, showing that there was the 

 highest point to which he had attained, the highest latitude he reached must have been 

 only about the 33d degree. 



tCastaueda's Relations, Teruaux Compans, p. 59. 



