TRAVELS IN THE CALI FOR NIAS. 
125 
drinking vessels ! After a year’s cruising in the Gulf, or Ma 
de Cortez, Ulloa returns to Acapulco. 
About this time Alvar Nunnez Cabeza de Vaca and Ins 
three companions, Gastello, Dorontes, and a negro called Es- 
tevanico, arrive at Mexico. They are the only survivors of 
three hundred Spaniards who landed in Florida with Pamfilo de 
Narvaez, ten years before, with the intention of conquering 
that country. They have been defeated and driven from Flo¬ 
rida, and having wandered on foot through Louisiana, Texas, 
and other parts inhabited by savages, they appear among 
their countrymen naked, and so changed in their personal ap¬ 
pearance, that their language is almost the only evidence of 
their origin. This Alvar Nunnez Cabeza de Vaca relates 
such surprising tales of his adventures, and the gold, pearls, 
&c., seen in the north, as to kindle anew the avarice of the 
Spaniards. The excitement, however, does not reach its 
height until the return of a monk who has travelled over 
those countries with the design of Christianizing the natives. 
This man has seen rich countries covered with grains, fruits, 
countless herds of black cattle, and mountains shining with 
the precious metals. 
The Viceroy and Cortez are enemies. They both conceive 
the design of penetrating these countries. But the 
former induces the creditors of the latter to vex him with le¬ 
gal proceedings while he himself dispatches an expedition by 
sea and another by land, to discover and conquer these won¬ 
der-born regions. The land force is led by Francisco Vas- 
quez Coronado. He marches at the head of one thousand 
chosen men; and after many hardships reaches his destination, in 
52° N. Lat., three hundred leagues north of Culiacan, Cinaloa, 
and Valle de Senora. He finds a province here composed of 
seven towns in which are about four hundred men and a pro¬ 
portionate number of women and children. The largest has 
two hundred houses of earth and rouoh wood. Some are four 
O 
and five stories high. The entrance to each floor is from the 
