364 THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1540-1542 [eth.ann. 14 



something to tell which interested his readers vastly more than the 

 painful, wonderful story of Cabeza de Vaca. The very fact that he 

 took it for granted, as he says in his report, that they would go to 

 populate and rule over this land of the Seven Cities, with its doorways 

 studded with turquoises, was enough to insure interest. He must, 

 indeed, have been a popular preacher, and when the position of father 

 provincial to the Franciscans became vacant, just now, brother Marcos, 

 already high in the order and with all the fresh prestige of his latest 

 achievements, was evidently the subject for promotion. Castafieda, 

 who is not the safest authority for events preceding the expedition, 

 says that the promotion was arranged by the viceroy. This may have 

 been so. His other statement is probable enough, that, as a result of 

 the promotion, the pulpits of the order were filled with accounts of such 

 marvels and wonders that large numbers were eager to join in the con- 

 quest of this new land. Whatever Friar Marcos may have sacrificed 

 to careful truth was atoned for, we may be sure, by the zealous, loyal 

 brethren of blessed Saint Francis. 



Don Joan Snarez de Peralta was born, as Seilor Zaragoza shows in 

 his admirable edition of the Tratado del Descubrimiento de las Yndias 

 y su Conquista, in Mexico between 1535 and 1540, and probably nearer 

 the first of these five years. In the Tratado, Suarez de Peralta gives a 

 most interesting description of the effect produced in Mexico by the 

 departure and the return of the Coronado expedition. He can hardly 

 have had very vivid personal recollections of the excitement produced 

 by the reports of Friar Marcos, yet his account is so clear and circum- 

 stantial that it evidently must be the narrative of an eyewitness, though 

 recorded, it may be, at secondhand. He tells us that ''the country 

 was so stirred up by the news which the friar had brought from the 

 Seven Cities that nothing else was thought about. For he said that 

 the city of Cibola was big enough to contain two Sevilles and over, 

 and the other places were not much smaller; and that the houses 

 were very fine edifices, four stories high; and in the country there are 

 many of what they call wild cows, and sheep and goats and rich 

 treasures. He exaggerated things so much, that everybody was for 



going there and leaving Mexico depopulated The news 



from the Seven Cities inspired so eager a desire in every one that not 

 only did the viceroy and the marquis (Cortes) make ready to start for 

 there, but the whole country wanted to follow them so much that they 

 traded for the licenses which permitted them to go as soldiers, and peo- 

 ple sold these as a favor, and whoever obtained one of these thought 

 that it was as good as a title of nobility at the least. For the friar 

 who had come from there exaggerated and said that * - was the best 

 place in the world; the people in that country very prosperous, and 

 all the Indians wearing clothes and the possessors of much cattle; 

 the mountains like those of Spain, and the climate the same. For 

 wood, they burnt very large walnut trees, which bear quantities of 



