The Romance of the Colorado River. Frederick Samuel DellenbaughЧитать онлайн книгу.
come from there reported that they had beards and guns and swords just the same. Alarcon still insisted that he was the son of the sun. They said the men at Cibola said the same, to which Alarcon replied that it might well be, and if so they need have no fear, for the sons of the sun would be his brothers and would treat them as he had done. This seemed to pacify them. He inquired now how far it was to Cibola, and they answered ten days through an uninhabited country, with no account of the rest of the way because it was inhabited.
* 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.
Alarcon was now more than ever desirous of informing Coronado of his whereabouts, and tried to persuade some of his men to go to Cibola with a message, promising fine rewards. Only one, a negro slave, and he with reluctance, offered to attempt the journey. Alarcon tried to get the old man to give him guides and provisions, but without success, as the old man seemed to desire to induce Alarcon to help them fight their battles with the Cumanas, saying, if he would end this war, he could have their company to Cibola. Alarcon was determined to go, and sent a man back to the ships to inform those there of his purpose, but he changed his mind soon after, concluding to go to the ships himself and return, leaving there his sick, and rearranging his company. The man who had been sent to the ships overland was overtaken and brought back by the natives, but was obliged to remain with them till Alarcon came up again. The descent from here was made in two and a half days, though it had taken fifteen to come up. Arriving at the ships all was found to have gone well except a few minor accidents, and, directing repairs to be made, Alarcon turned about and started up-river once more, first calling the whole company together, telling them what he had learned of Cibola, and that, as Coronado might now have been informed by natives of his presence, he hoped to find means of reaching him. There was much objection to this plan, but he proceeded to carry it out, taking all three boats this time, loaded with "wares of exchange, with corn and other seeds, with hens and cocks of Castile." This region he called the Province of Campanna de la Cruz, and he left orders for the building of an oratory or chapel to be named the Chapel of Our Lady de la Buena Guia. The river he called the Rio de Buena Guia (good guidance) from the motto on the viceroy Mendoza's coat of arms. It was Tuesday, the 14th of September, when he started, taking with him Nicolas Zamorano, chief pilot, to record the latitudes. He soon arrived again among the Quicomas,* and then among the Coamas, where he found his man who had been left behind on the first trip. This man had been so well treated that he was entirely content to remain till the party should come back down the river. This was the highest point reached on the first visit. Everywhere the people were treasuring the crosses which had been given them, kneeling before them at sunrise. Alarcon kept on up the river till he "entered between certain very high mountains, through which this river passeth with a straight channel, and the boats went up against the stream very hardly for want of men to draw the same." From this it may be inferred that the Coamas did not strive with each other for the privilege of towing the boats of these children of the sun as those below had done. Now an enchanter from the Cumanas tried to destroy the party by setting magic reeds in the water on both sides, but the spell failed and the explorers went on to the home of the old man who had been so good a friend and guide to them. At this, Alarcon's farthest point, he caused a very high cross to be erected, on which words were carved to the effect that he had reached the place, so that if Coronado's men chanced to come that way they might see it. Nothing is said about burying letters, yet Diaz later mentions finding letters buried at the foot of a tree, apparently nearer the sea. Deciding that he could not at this time accomplish his purpose of opening communication with the army, Alarcon concluded to return to the ships, but with the intention of trying once more. The second day after starting down he arrived at the place where the Spaniard had remained. He told him that he had gone "above thirty leagues into the country" beyond. It had taken him, before, two and a half days to reach the river mouth from here, so that it seems he was about four days going down from his farthest point. Roughly estimating his progress at six miles an hour for twelve hours a day, in four days the distance covered would be about 288 miles. He says he went up eighty-five leagues (this would be fifty-five the first time and thirty more the second), which, counting in Mexican leagues of two and three quarter miles each, gives a distance of 233¾ miles, or about one hundred miles above the mouth of the Gila. This stream he does not mention. He may have taken it for a mere bayou, but it appears to be certain that he passed beyond it. He says Ulloa was mistaken by two degrees as to his northernmost point, and that he sailed four degrees beyond him. The meaning of this may be that he went four degrees beyond Ulloa's false reckoning, or actually two degrees above the shoals where Ulloa turned back. This would take him to the 34th parallel, and would coincide with his eighty-five leagues, and also with the position of the first mountains met with in going up the river, the Chocolate range. Alarcon was not so inexperienced that he would have represented eighty-five leagues on the course of the river as equalling four degrees of latitude. Had he gone to the 36th degree he would have passed through Black Canyon, and this is so extraordinary a feature that he could not have failed to note it specially. When Alarcon arrived at the ships again, he evidently had strong reason for abandoning his intention of returning for another attempt to communicate with Coronado, and he set sail for home. Another document says the torredo was destroying the ships, and this is very probable. He coasted down the gulf, landing frequently, and going long distances into the interior searching for news of Coronado, but he learned nothing beyond what he heard on the river.
* The tribes and bands spoken of by Alarcon cannot be identified, but
these Quicomas, or Quicamas, were doubtless the same as the Quiquimas
mentioned by Kino, 1701, and Garces, 1775. They were probably of Yuman
stock. The Cumanas were possibly Mohaves.
While he was striving to find a way of reaching the main body of the expedition, which during this time was complacently robbing the Puebloans on the Rio Grande, two officers of that expedition were marching through the wilderness endeavouring to find him, and a third was travelling toward the Grand Canyon. One of these was Don Rodrigo Maldonado, thus bearing exactly the same name as one of Alarcon's officers; another was Captain Melchior Diaz, and the third Don Lopez de Cardenas, who distinguished himself on the Rio Grande by particular brutality toward the villagers. Don Rodrigo went in search of the ships down the river to the coast from the valley of Corazones, but obtained no information of them, though he met with giant natives and brought back with him one very tall man as a specimen. The main army of Coronado had not yet gone from this valley of Corazones, where the settlement called San Hieronimo had been established, and the best man in it reached only to the chest of this native giant.
The army moved on to another valley, where a halt was made to await orders from the general. At length, about the middle of September, Melchior Diaz came back from Cibola, with dispatches, accompanied by Juan Gallegos, who bore a message for the viceroy. In their company also was the miserable Friar Marcos, pursuing his dismal return to New Spain by direction of the general, who considered it unsafe for him to remain with the army now that the glorious bubble of his imagination had been exploded. Melchior Diaz was an excellent officer, and already had an experience in this northern region extending over some four years. It was he, also, who had been sent, the previous November, as far as the place called Chichilticalli, in an attempt to verify the friar's tale, and had reported that the natives were good for nothing except to make into Christians. The main army, which was in command of Don Tristan de Arellano, in accordance with the orders received from Coronado, now advanced toward Cibola. Maldonado, who had been to the coast, went with it. Diaz retained eighty men, part of whom were to defend the settlement of San Hieronimo, and twenty-five were to accompany him on his expedition in search of Alarcon. He started north and then went west, following native guides for 150 leagues (412½ miles) in all, and at length reached a country inhabited by giant natives who, in order to keep warm in the chill autumn air, carried about with them a firebrand. From this circumstance,