winshif] ACCOUNTS OF NIZA'S JOURNEY 365 



walnuts better than those of Spain. They have many mountain grapes, 

 which are very good eating, chestnuts, and filberts. According to the 

 way he painted it, this should have been the terrestrial paradise. For 

 game, there were partridges, geese, cranes, and all the other winged 

 creatures — it was marvelous what was there." And then Suarez adds, 

 writing half a century later, "He told the truth in all this, because 

 there are mountains in that country, as he said, and herds, especially 



of cows There are grapes and game, without doubt, and a 



climate like that of Spain." 1 



Second-hand evidence, recorded fifty years after the occurrence, is 

 far from conclusive. Fortunately, we are able to supplement it by 

 legal testimony, taken down and recorded under oath, with all the for- 

 malities of the old Spanish law customs. When the news of Friar 

 Marcos' journey reached Spain there was much rivalry among those 

 who claimed the privilege of completing the discovery. Much evi- 

 dence was presented and frequent pleas were entered by all the men 

 who had an active part and leadership in the conquest of the northern 

 portion of the New World. In the course of the litigation the repre- 

 sentative of the adelantado Hernando de Soto, presented some testi- 

 mony which had been given in the town of San Cristobal de la Habana 

 de la Isla Fernandina — Habana and Cuba — dated November 12, 1539. 

 There were seven witnesses, from a ship which had been obliged to put 

 into this port in order to procure water and other supplies, and also 

 because some persons aboard had become very sick. Each witness 

 declared that a month or more before — Friar Marcos arrived back 

 in Mexico before the end of August, 1539 — he had heard, and that 

 this was common talk iu Mexico, Vera Cruz, and in Puebla de los An- 

 geles, that a Franciscan friar named Fray Marcos, who had recently 

 come from the inland regions, said that he had discovered a very rich 

 and very populous country 400 or 500 leagues north of Mexico. " He 

 said that the country is rich in gold, silver and other treasures, and 

 that it contains very large villages; that the houses are built of stone, 

 and terraced like those of Mexico, and that they are high and iurposing. 

 The people, so he said, are shrewd, and do not marry more than one 

 wife at a time, and they wear coarse woolen cloth and ride on some ani- 

 mals," the name of which the witness did not know. Another testified 

 that the common report was that this country " was very rich and pop- 

 ulous and had great walled cities, and that the lords of the cities were 

 called kings, and that the people were very shrewd and use the Mexican 

 language." But the witness to whose deposition we are most indebted 

 was Andres Garcia. This man declared that he had a son-in-law who 

 was a barber, who had shaved the friar after he came back from the new 

 country. The son-in-law had told the witness that the friar, while being 



■The Spanish text from which I have translated may be found on pages 144 and 148 of Zaragoza's 

 edition of Suarez de Peralta's Tratado. This edition is of the greatest usefulness to every student of 

 early iiexican history. 



