386 THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1540-1542 [eth.ann.H 



This port had been the seat of the shipbuilding operations of Cortes 

 on the Pacific coast, and it is very probable that Alarcon's two ships 

 were the same as those which the marquis claimed to have equipped 

 for a projected expedition. Alarcon sailed north to Santiago, where he 

 was obliged to stop, in order to refit his vessels and to replace some 

 artillery and stores which had been thrown overboard from his com- 

 panion ship during a storm. Thence he sailed to Aguaiauale, as Ka- 

 musio has it, the port of San Miguel de Culiacan. The army had already 

 departed, and so Alarcon, after replenishing his store of provisions, 

 added the San Gabriel to his fleet and continued his voyage. He fol- 

 lowed the shore closely and explored many harbors "which the ships of 

 the marquis had failed to observe," as he notes, but he .nowhere suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining any news of the army of Coronado. 



THE JOURNEY FROM CULIACAN TO CIBOLA 



Melchior Diaz had met with so many difficulties in traveling through 

 the country which the army was about to enter, on its march toward the 

 Seven Cities, and the supply of food to be found there was everywhere so 

 small, that Coronado decided to divide his force for this portion of the 

 journey. He selected seventy-five or eighty horsemen, including his 

 persona] friends, and twenty-five or thirty foot soldiers. With these 

 picked men, equipped for rapid marching, he hastened forward, clear- 

 ing the way for the main body of the army, which was to follow more 

 slowly, starting a fortnight after his own departure. With the foot- 

 men in the advance party were the four friars of the expedition, whose 

 zealous eagerness to reach the unconverted natives of the Seven Cities 

 was so great that they were willing to leave the main portion of the army 

 without a spiritual guide. Fortunately for these followers, a broken leg 

 compelled one of the brethren to remain behind. Coronado attempted 

 to take some sheep with him, but these soon proved to be so great a 

 hindrance that they were left at the river Yaquimi, in charge of four 

 horsemen, who conducted them at a more moderate pace. 



Leaving Culiacan on April 22, Coronado followed the coast, "bearing 

 off to the left," as Mota Padilla says, by an extremely rough way, to 

 the river Cinaloa. The configuration of the country made it necessary 

 to follow up the valley of this stream until he could find a passage 

 across the mountains to the course of the Yaquimi. He traveled along- 

 side this stream for some distance, and then crossed to Sonora river. 1 



H. H. Bancroft (North Mexican States, vol. i, p. 90) says the fleet probably started from Acapulco. 

 Bancroft does not mention Herrera, who is, I suppose, the conclusive authority. Gen. .T. H. Simpson 

 (Smithsonian Report for I860, p. 315), accepted the start from La Natividad, and then identified this 

 Santiago with the port of Conipostela, which was well known under the name of Xalisco. The distance 

 of Acapulco from Colima would explain the considerable lapse of time before Alarcon was ready to start. 

 ■Coronado's description of this portion of the route in the letter of August 3 is abbreviated, he 

 says, br cause it was accompanied by a map. As this is lost, I am following here, as I shall do through- 

 out the Introduction, Bandelier's identification of the route in his Historical Introduction, p. 10, and 

 in his Final Report, part II, pp. 407-409. The itinerary of Jaraiuillo, confused and perplexing as it is, 

 is the chief guide for the earlier part of the route. There is no attempt in this introductory narra- 

 tive to repeat the details of the journey, when these may he obtained, much more satisfactorily, from 

 the translation of the contemporary narratives which form the main portion of this memoir. 



