376 THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1540-1542 [eth. amn.14 



who made it possible to live in security ou the farms and ranches 

 of the province had rendered many and indispensable services, and 

 there was much that they might still do to enlarge its boundaries and 

 make the security more certain. They were, nevertheless, a serious 

 hindrance to the prosperity of the settlements. For the most part they 

 were young men of all sorts and degrees. Among them were many 

 sous of Spanish noblemen, like Mendoza the viceroy, whose brother 

 had just succeeded his father as Marquis de Mondejar. Very much of 

 the extension of the Spanish world by discovery and conquest was due 

 to the sons of men of rank, who had, perhaps generally, begun to sow 

 their wild oats in Spain and were sent across the Atlantic in order to 

 keep them out of mischief at home, or to atone, it may be, for mischief 

 already done. In action, these young caballeros were most efficient. 

 By personal valor and ability, they held the positions of leadership 

 everywhere, among men who followed whom and when they chose, and 

 always chose the man who led them most successfully. When inactive, 

 these same cavaliers were a most trying annoyance to any community 

 in which they happened to be. Armed with royal letters and compre- 

 hensive introductions, they had to be entertained, at heavy charges. 

 Masters of their own movements, they came as they liked, and very 

 often did not go away. Lovers of excitement, they secured it regard- 

 less of other men's wives or property. 



There had been few attractions to draw these adventurers away 

 from Mexico, the metropolis of the mainland, for some time previous 

 to 1539. Peru still offered excitement for those who had nothing to 

 gain or lose, but the purely personal struggle going on there between 

 Pizarro and Alinagro could not arouse the energies of those who were 

 in search of glory as well as of employment. A considerable part of 

 the rabble which followed Nuiio de Guzman during the conquest of 

 New Galicia went to Peru after their chief had been superseded by the 

 Licentiate de la Torre, so that one town is said to have disappeared 

 entirely from this cause; but among these there were few men of good 

 birth and spirit. Mendoza had been able, at first, to accommodate 

 and employ those who accompanied him from Spain, like Vazquez 

 Corouado, "being chiefly young gentlemen." But every vessel com- 

 ing from home brought some companion or friend of those who were 

 already in New Spain, and after Cabeza de Vaca carried the reports of 

 his discoveries to the Spanish court, an increasing number came each 

 season to join the already burdensome body of useless members of the 

 viceregal household. The viceroy recognized the necessity of relieving 

 the community of this burden very soon after he had established him- 

 self in Mexico, and he was continually on the watch for some suitable 

 means of freeing himself from these guests. By 1539 the problem of 

 looking after these young gentlemen — whose number is determined 

 quite accurately by the two hundred and fifty or three hundred "gen- 

 tlemen ou horseback" who left New Spain with Corouado in the 



