310 



cities were seven in number, and had streets which were exclusively oc- 

 cupied by workers in gold and silver; that to reach them a journey 

 of forty days through a desert was required; and that travelers pene- 

 trated Vhe interior of that region by directing their steps northwardly 

 between the two seas. 



Xufio de Guzman, confidently relying on this information, organized 

 an army of four hundred Spaniards and twenty thousand Indian allies 

 of New Spain,* and set out in search of these seven wonderful cities; 

 but, alter reaching the province of Culiacan, he encountered such great 

 difficulties on account of the mountains he had to cross that he aban- 

 doned the enterprise, and contented himself with colonizing the prov- 

 ince of Culiacan. 



In the mean time, the Tejos Indian who had been his guide dying, the 

 seven cities remained only known by name, till about eight years after- 

 ward, when there arrived in Mexico three Spaniards named Alvar 

 Xufiez Cabeca de Vaca, Andres Dorantes, and Alonso del Castillo 

 Maldonado, accompanied by an Arabian negro named Estevanico, (Ste- 

 phen.^ These persons had been wrecked with the fleet which I'ani- 



* Castaneda's Relations. Ternaux Couipaus' Collections, Paris, 1838, p. 2. Haliluyt, 

 quoting from a letter wfTYteu by the Viceroy Antonio de Mendoca to the Emperor 

 Charles V, Stays: "Nuiio de Guzman departed out of the city of Mexico with 400 

 horsemen and 14,000 Indians." (Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii, p. 43(3, new ed. London, 

 Id 10.) 



tThis is according to Castaiicda's account ; but according to that of Cabeca de Vaca, 

 Ternanx Compans' Collections, these persons arrived in New Spain in l.'vio', or six in- 

 stead of eight years alter Xuno de Guzman's expedition. Their adventures were so 

 remarkable I cannot retrain from saying something about them : 



Pamphilo de Narvaez sailed from the West Indies early in 1.Y2S, with four hundred 

 men. eighty horses, and four ships, for the purpose of exploring the country of Florida, 

 of which he had been made governor. He seems to have reached the harbor of Santa 

 Cruz (supposed to be Tampa Bay) in April of that year, and on the 1st May debarked 

 with three hundred men, forty of whom were mounted, for the purpose of exploring 

 the interior of the country. His course was northwardly, and generally parallel to 

 the coast. On the 2i>th June he reached an Indian town called Apaladic, when; he 

 tarried twenty-five days. He then journeyed in nine days TO a place called Aule. 

 Continuing his course thence west \vardly for several days, his men became so dispirited 

 from finding no gold, and on account of the rough treatment of the natives, that they 

 returned to Ante, where, hearing nothing of their ships, which had been ordered TO 

 coast along with, them and await their arrival at some good harbor, they constructed 

 live small boats, in which two hundred and lifty of the party (all who had not died or 

 been killed by the natives) embarked, steering along The coast west wardly for Paniico, 

 on the coast of Mexico. At length they reached the mouth of a river. The current of 

 which was so strong as to prevent their making headway against it. and whose fresh 

 water was carried out some distance into the gulf. About seven days alter, while making 

 their way with great difficulty westwardly, the boat commanded by Cabeca de Vaca 

 was cast on an island, called by them Malhado. (Misfortune.) A day or two after this 

 Cabeca de Vaca's boat and all the others were capsized in a storm oft' the island of 

 Malhado, except that of the governor of Narvaez. which seems to have drifted out 

 to sea, and. with its crew, was never afterward heard of. Those of the party that 

 were not drowned remained on the island of Malhado and main land adjacent for six 

 years, and endured from the Indians, who had enslaved them, the greatest indignities. 

 From this cause, and from starvation and cold, the greater portion of them died. At 

 length four of them, (those mentioned in the text above.) all that probably survived, 

 escaped from their bondage, taking in their flight a northern course, toward the 

 mountains, probably, of Northern Alabama. Thence their course Avas westwardly 

 across the Mississippi (which was doubtless " the great river coming from the North." 

 spoken of by Cabeca) and Arkansas rivers, to the headwaters of the Canadian, which 

 they seem to have crossed just above the great canon of that river, (where Coronado 

 crossed it in his outward route to Quivira. of which more in the sequel;) thence 

 southwestwardly through what is now New Mexico and Arizona to Culiacan, in Old 

 Mexico, near the Pacific Coast, which they reached in the spring of I5:>o. (See narra- 

 tive of. Alvar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca. translated by Buckingham Smith, Washington. 

 1~.">1 ; and, in confirmation of the above specified crossing of the Canadian River, 

 " Tin: Relations of Castaueda, by Ternaux Compans." p. 120.) 



Mr. Albert Gallatiu, in his essay, vol. 2, pp. 5(5,57, Transactions of American Ethno- 



