HISTORIC NOTES.

NOTE 1.

One of the most memorable expeditions which followed the conquest of Mexico was that led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, in search of the seven cities of Cibola and the famed land of Quivira, during the years 1540 to 1542.

It takes us back to a time when but little was known of this western hemisphere, or, in fact, of the size, shape or geography of the earth; to a time when physical science was unknown, save what had come down from Aristotle; to a time when the reason of man, inquiring after the causes of things, founded its speculations on fancy rather than fact. It was just at the dawn of intellectual freedom, ushered in by the invention of printing; and nineteen years before Elizabeth ascended the throne of England, whose reign named an age in letters and science. It was eighty years before Bacon gave to the world his Novum Organum; sixty years before Shakespeare put upon the stage those masterly plays which will outlive his nation; and eighty years before the Pilgrims landed with their story of grief to chant their song of freedom in the American wilder

ness.

This army which Coronado led out of Mexico, to go with him in quest of gold and to plant the cross on the Rocky Mountains and on the plains of Kansas, contained only three hundred men, but the best and noblest blood of Spain ran in their veins. It is said no other expedition in the new world contained more men of noble birth. Among them we find the resolute Captains Melchior Diaz and Juan de Saldibar, who, with but twelve men as an advance guard, penetrated the primeval wilderness northward seven hundred miles, and afterward, under the direction of Coronado, went in search of and found the records of the adventurer and sailor, Don Fernando

Alarcon, who had ascended the Colorado river 160 miles from its mouth, but who was forced to abandon the expedition at the northern extremity of the Gulf of California. Hernando d'Alvarado was also another great captain, who with small detachments of troops explored the country for many hundreds of miles right and left of Coronado's route. We find also the historians Castañeda and Jaramillo, who accompanied the expedition from beginning to end, and faithfully chronicled its history.

When we consider this small troop of men separating themselves from their companions in arms, and, without any base for supplies, plunging into an unknown wilderness, with its inaccessible mountains, its mighty streams, and treeless, sandy deserts, to there subsist on what the chase or the Indian could bestow, to contend against the vicissitudes of the seasons, the climate and the elements, and to encounter for nearly three years the savage beasts and more savage man, we are overwhelmed with wonder at their daring and fortitude. It reveals to us in no small degree the indomitable pluck and energy, the sturdy and tireless soldiery, and the unbounded zeal which animated those old Spanish cavaliers who fought the battles of Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella and established the power and glory of Charles the Fifth.

NOTE 2.

The immediate cause of Coronado's march was the marvelous story which Alvar Nuñez Cabeça de Vaca told on his arrival in Mexico, after having traveled from east to west across the continent. This celebrated gentleman and historian, whom Robertson calls "one of the most gallant and virtuous of Spanish adventurers," was the treasurer of that ill-fated military expedition undertaken by Narvaez in Florida, in the year 1528. In less than one year this whole command perished, either by the enemy, by starvation, or the elements. Cabeça with three others alone survived. They remained with the natives for six years, near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and at last, after having learned the language, the habits and character of

the Indian tribes frequenting those parts, they effected their escape. They passed northward into the mountains of Alabama; then taking a northwestern course into Tennessee, were the first white men to discover the Mississippi river, which Cabeça called "the great river" coming from the north. This discovery preceded De Soto at least six years. This river they crossed, and traveled westward through northern Arkansas, and up the Arkansas around the great bend. There is no doubt that Cabeça and his companions were the first white men within historic times who had touched upon the soil of Kansas. It is reported by the chroniclers of Coronado's expedition that "ten days after leaving the Rio de Cicuyé,” (at a point near the present town of Pecos, on their march,) "they discovered some tents of tanned buffalo skins, inhabited by Indians who were like Arabs, and who were called Querechios, and continuing their march in a northeasterly direction, they soon came to a village which Cabeça de Vaca and Dorantes had passed through on their way from Florida to Mexico."

This village was at least 250 miles from the present town of Pecos, and by the "trail" was certainly in Kansas. This old Indian trail, along which was borne the commerce of prehistoric times, passed just west of the great cañon of the Canadian river, thence through the cities of Cibola into Old Mexico. On this trail Cabeça went thence through New Mexico, passing near Zuñi's heights and southward to Old Mexico, where he arrived in 1536, having been one year on his journey. His report, made up of the story of his bondage, his travels and trials by land and sea, his knowledge of a vast continent which he had traversed, the home of heretofore unknown races of men, all colored in fervid language and imagination, became a great unwritten poem of adventure to Coronado, of which he should become the hero in daring deeds and brilliant exploits.

NOTE 3.

The seven cities of Cibola, instead of being that in number, and instead of being "a great city, inhabited with great store of people, and having streets and market places, and built of

certain great houses of five stories high, of lime and stone," turned out to be a few common Pueblo adobes. These structures were composed of dried mud, and were seldom more than one story high, similar in all respects to those of the Tlascans and Tescucans of Mexico at the time of the conquest. J. H. Simpson, in his article on the "Seven Cities of Cibola," (Smithsonian Report, 1869,) says: "In the year 1530, Nuño de Guzman, president of New Spain, was informed by his slave, an Indian from the province of Tejos, situated somewhere north from Mexico, that in his travels he had seen cities so large that they might compare with the City of Mexico; that these cities were seven in number, and had streets that were exclusively occupied by workers in gold and silver; that to reach them a journey of forty days was required, and that travelers penetrated that region by directing their steps northwardly between the two seas.' This story proved to be one of the many Indian fables told to the Spanish adventurer for the purpose of exciting or curing his disease—"the desire for gold."

Cibola was never found, for the reason that it never existed. Simpson, above quoted, thinks Zuñi is the spot. He followed the guess of Gallatin, Squier, Whipple, Prof. Turner, and Kern. Others think Chaco the spot; some Santa Fé; while others again hold that the "seven cities" were located far to the eastward. But while these seven cities of Cibola never came to light, the fact remains that many small villages existed in New Mexico and along the Gila river, the habitations of a race of Indians who did not live alone by the chase, but combined with this a rude and primitive agriculture, with some few simple domestic arts. This distinguished them from the wild, Arab-like, roving Indians of the plains, who lived in movable tents made of tanned buffalo skins.

The Pueblos also dug caves into the sides of the mountains at places, which proved a means of defense against their roving neighbors, and with whom they came in contact on the great plains, the home of the buffalo. In these caves and mud villages they dwelt for ages, comparatively secure, yet in disgusting primitive filth and squalor.