Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/26

Rh the youth of the country with a longing to emulate their great countryman; so when Coronado had completed his education, being of the manor born, and having from childhood been fed on the legends of the chivalric Cid, naturally with eagerness sought his fathers friend, Antonio de Mendoza, when the King appointed him Governor of Mexico to succeed the deposed Cortes, to procure a commission to accompany the newly appointed Governor of Mexico. For several months, while the expedition was being equipped, Coronado at his home was gathering up his paraphernalia, such as horses, armor, harquebusses, swords, personel retinue of servants and fighting men, which made a great commotion in the city of Salamanca. The 17,000 students who were that year attending the numerous institutions of learning in that famous city and the magnificent display of war-like preparations were indelibly branded upon the brain of many a boy who was in his teens attending school.

There was one young Spaniard who was in heaven during the period of this bustle. With all the energy of youth he took his lessons, not only from the professors of learning, but he toiled early and late to acquire all the elements necessary to constitute a Cavalier. At this period of history war was the craze of Europe, and particularly of Spain: so is there any wonder that the school-boy here referred to should be ambitious to become a MAN? How natural it is for a boy to have a longing to reach manhood, and on the other hand, when a man arrives at middle life, how he would like to be young.