winship] THE JOURNEY TO QUIVIRA 397 



nothing here except a piece of copper hanging from the neck of a chief, 

 and a piece of gold which one of the Spaniards was suspected of having 

 given to the natives, which gave any promise of mineral wealth, and 

 so Ooronado determined to rejoin his main force. Although they had 

 found no treasures, the explorers were fully aware of the agricultural 

 advantages of this country, and of the possibilities for profitable farm- 

 ing, if only some market for the produce could be found. 



Students of the Coronado expedition have very generally accepted 

 the location of Quivira proposed by General Simpson, who put the 

 northern point reached by Coronado somewhere in the eastern half of 

 the border country of Kansas and Nebraska. If we take into account 

 the expeditions which visited the outer limits of the Quivira settlements, 

 this is not inconsistent with Baudelier's location of the main seat of 

 these Indians "in northeastern Kansas, beyond the Arkansas river, 

 and more than 100 miles northeast of Great Bend." 1 



It is impossible to ignore the question of the route taken by Coro- 

 nado across the great plains, although the details chiefly concern local 

 historians. The Spanish travelers spent the summer of 1541 on the 

 prairies west of the Mississippi and south of the Missouri. They left 

 descriptions of these plains, and of the people and animals inhabiting 

 them, which are of as great interest and value as any which have 

 since been written. Fortunately it is not of especial importance for 

 us to know the exact section of the prairies to which various parts of 

 the descriptions refer. 



From Cicuye, the Pecos pueblo, Coronado marched northeast until 

 he crossed Canadian river, probably a little to the east of the present 

 river and settlement of Mora.^ This was about the 1st of May, 1541. 

 From this point General Simpson, whose intimate knowledge of the 

 surface of the country thirty-five years ago makes his map of the 

 route across the plains most valuable, carried the line of march nearly 

 north, to a point halfway between Canadian and Arkansas rivers. 

 Then it turned east, or a trifle north of east, until it reached one of the 

 tributaries of the Arkansas, about 50 miles or so west of Wichita, Kan- 

 sas. The army returned by a direct route to Cicuye or Pecos river, 

 striking that stream nearly east of Bernalillo-Tiguex, while Coronado 

 proceeded due north to Quivira on the Kansas-Nebraska boundary. 



Mr Bandelier has traced a route for the march across the plains 

 which corresponds with the statements of the contemporary narratives 

 somewhat more closely than does that of General Simpson. 3 Crossing 



■Final Report, vol. i, p. 170. 



'Ibid., vol. l, p. 178. 



3 Bandelier's best discussion of tbe route is in his article on Fray Juan de Padilla, in the American 

 Catholic Quarterly Review, vol. xv, p. 551. Tho Gilded Man also contains an outline of the prob- 

 able route. Au element in bis calculation, to which he gives much prominence, is the tendency of 

 one who is lost to wander always toward the right. This is strongly emphasized in the Gilded Han ; 

 but it can, I think, hardly merit the importance which be gives to it. The emphasis appears, how- 

 ever, much more in Baudelier's words than in his results. I cau uot see that there is anything ta 

 show that the Indian guides ever really lost their reckoning. 



