22 
The Colorado River 
white men were concerned. Farther up^ Alarcon met with an¬ 
other man who understood his interpreter, and this man said 
he had been to Cibola, or Cevola,^ as Alargon writes it, and 
that it was a month’s journey, ‘‘by a path that went along that 
river. ’ ’ Alargon must now have been about at the mouth of the 
Gila, and the river referred to was, of course, the Gila. This 
man described the towns of Cibola as all who had seen them 
described them; that is, large towns of three- or four-storey 
houses, with windows on the sides,and encompassed by walls 
some seven or eight feet in height. The pueblos of the Rio 
Grande valley were well known in every direction and for long 
distances. The Apaches, harassing the villagers on every side, 
and having themselves a wide range, alone carried the know¬ 
ledge of them to the four winds. In every tribe, too, there are 
born travellers who constantly visit distant regions, bringing 
back detailed descriptions of their adventures and the sights 
beheld, with which to regale an admiring crowd during the 
winter evenings. Their descriptions are usually fairly accurate 
from the standpoint of their own understanding. In this case 
the native gave a good description of the Cibola towns, and 
the Tusayan people had meanwhile given Cardenas a descrip¬ 
tion of these very natives on the lower Colorado. A day or 
two later Alarcon received further information of Cibola, and 
this informant told about a chief who had four green earthen 
plates like Alarcon’s, except in color, and also a dog like Al¬ 
arcon’s, as well as other things, which a black man had brought 
into the country. This black man was Estevan, who had been 
killed about a year before. The news of this man and his ex¬ 
ecution had travelled rapidly, showing frequent intercourse 
with the pueblos beyond the mountains. Still farther on he 
met another man who had been at Cibola, and who also told 
him of a great river in which there were crocodiles. This was 
* The old Spaniards used “ v” and “b” interchangeably, so that Cibola and 
Cevola would be pronounced the same. Other letters were used in the same loose 
way. 
■^Windows on the sides of the houses, not of the walls, as one writer has put it. 
The villages of the lower part of New Mexico had these walls of circumvallation, 
but to the northward such walls appear to have been rare. 
