winehip] CORONADO TO THE KING, OCTOBER 20, 1541 . r )Sl 



of this country dress themselves here. They have little field tents made 

 of the hides of the cows, tanned and greased, very well made, in which 

 they live while they travel around near the cows, moving with these. 

 They have dogs which they load, which carry their tents and poles and 

 belongings. These people have the best figures of any that I have seen 

 in the Indies. They could not give me any account of the country 

 where the guides were taking me. I traveled five days more as the 

 guides wished to lead me, until I reached some plains, with no more 

 landmarks than as if we had been swallowed up in the sea, where they 

 strayed about, because there was not a stone, nor a bit of rising ground, 

 nor a tree, nor a shrub, nor anything to go by. There is much very fine 

 pasture land, with good grass. And while we were lost in these plains, 

 some horsemen who went off to hunt cows fell in with some Indians who 

 also were out hunting, who are enemies of those that I had seen in 

 the last settlement, and of another sort of people who are called Teyas; 

 they have their bodies and faces all painted, are a large people like the 

 others, of a very good build ; they eat the raw flesh just like the Quere- 

 chos, and live and travel round with the cows in the same way as these. 

 I obtained from these an account of the country where the guides were 

 taking me, which was not like what they had told me, because these made 

 out that the houses there were not built of stones, with stones, as my 

 guides had described it, but- of straw and skins, and a small supply of 

 corn there. This news troubled me greatly, to find myself on these lim- 

 itless plains, where I was in great need of water, and often had to drink 

 it so poor that it was more mud than water. Here the guides confessed 

 to me that they had not told the truth in regard to the size of the houses, 

 because these were of straw, but that they had done so regarding the 

 large number of inhabitants and the other things about their habits. 

 The Teyas disagreed with this, and on account of this division between 

 some of the Indians and the others, and also because many of the meu 

 I had with me had not eaten anything except meat for some days, 

 because we had reached the end of the corn which we carried from this 

 province, and because they made it out more than forty days' journey 

 from where I fell in with the Teyas to the country where the guides were 

 taking me, although I appreciated the trouble and danger there would 

 be in the journey owing to the lack of water and corn, it seemed to me 

 best, in order to see if there was anything there of service to Your Maj- 

 esty, to go forward with only 30 horsemen until I should be able to see 

 the country, so as to give Your Majesty a true account of what was to 

 be found in it. I sent all the rest of the force I had with me to this 

 province, with Don Tristan de Arellano in command, because it would 

 have been impossible to prevent the loss of many men, if all had gone 

 on, owing to the lack of water and because they also had to kill bulls 

 and cows on which to sustain themselves. And with only the 30 horse- 

 men whom I took for my escort, I traveled forty-two days after I left 

 the force, living all this while solely on the flesh of the bulls and cows 

 which we killed, at the cost of several of our horses which they killed, 



