396 THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1540-1542 [eth.ann.U 



was at last induced to confess that be bad lied. Quivira, be still 

 insisted, existed, though it was not as be had described it. From the 

 natives of the plains they learned that there were no settlements 

 toward the east, the direction in which they bad been traveling, but 

 that toward the north, another good month's journey distant, there 

 were permanent settlements. The corn which the soldiers had brought 

 from Tiguex was almost gone, while the horses were tired and weak 

 from the constant marching and buffalo chasing, with only grass for food. 

 It was clearly impossible for the whole force to attempt this further 

 journey, with the uncertain prospect of finding native tribes like those 

 they had already seen as the only incentive. The general held a coun- 

 cil of his officers and friends, and decided to select 30 of the best 

 equipped horsemen, who should go with him and attempt to verify the 

 new information. 



After Coronado bad chosen his companions, the rest of the force was 

 sent back to Tiguex, as Castaneda relates. The Indians whom they 

 met on the plains furnished guides, who led the soldiers to the Pueblo 

 settlements by a more direct route than that which the Turk bad taken. 

 But the marches were short and slow, so that it was the middle of July 

 before they were again encamped alongside the Rio Grande. So far 

 as is known, nothing of interest happened while they were waiting there 

 for the return of the general. 



Coronado and his companion horsemen followed the compass needle 

 for forty -two days after leaving the main force, or, as he writes, "after 

 traveling across these deserts for seventy-seven days in all," they 

 reached the country of Quivira. Here he found some people who lived 

 in permanent settlements and raised a little corn, but whose suste- 

 nance came mainly from the buffalo herds, which they hunted at regular 

 seasons, instead of continuously as the plains Indians encountered pre- 

 viously had done. 1 



Twenty-five days were spent among the villages at Quivira, so that 

 Jaramillo, one of the party, doubtless remembered correctly when he 

 said that they were there after the middle of August. 2 There was 



'The Spaniards had already observed two distinct branches of these pure uouiads, whom they knew 

 as Querechos and Teyas. Bandelier, in his Final Report, vol. i. p. 179. identified the Quereehos with 

 the Apaches of the plains, but later investigation by Mr James Mooney shows that Querecho is an 

 old Comanche name of t lie Tonka wa of western central Texas (Hodge, Early Navajo and Apache, Am. 

 Anthropologist, Washington, July, 1895, vol. iii, p. 235). I am unable to find any single tribal group 

 among the Indians whom we know which can be identified with the Teyas, unless, as Mr Hodge has 

 suggested, they may have been the Comanche, who roamed the plains from Yellowstone Park to 

 Durango, Mexico. 



2 I am inclined, also, to believe Jaramillo's statement thai the days marches on the journey to 

 Quivira were short ones. But when he writes that the journey occupied " more than thirty days, or 

 almost thirty days' journey, although not long day's marches, 11 — seguimos nuestro viaje . . . masde 

 treinta dias u casi treinta dias de camino, aunqne no de jornadas grandes — and again, that they 

 decided to return "because it was already nearly the beginning of winter, . . . and lest the winter 

 might prevent the return, " — nos parescid ;i todos, que pues que hera ya casi la boca del inbierno, 



porque si me acnerdo bien, jera media y mas de Agosto, y per ser ] os para inbernar alii. . . . y 



porqne el inviernono nos cerrase Ios caminos de nieves y rios que no nos dexesen pasar tPaeheco 

 y Cardenas, Doc. de Indias, vol. xiv. pp. 312, 314) — we experience some of the difficulties which make 

 it hard to analyse the captain's recollections critically and satisfactorily. 



