Page:The Coronado expedition, 1540-1542.djvu/143

 their rulers ate, many men waited about the tables. They ate with napkins, and had baths—a natural inference from any attempt to describe the stutty underground rooms, the estufas or kivas of the Pueblos.

Alarcon continued to question the Indian, and learned that the lord of Cibola had a dog like one which accompanied the Spaniards, and that when dinner was served, the lord of Cibola had four plates like those used by the Spaniards, except that they were green. He obtained these at the same time that he got the dog, with some other things, from a black man who wore a beard, whom the people of Cibola killed. A few days later, Alarcon obtained more details concerning the death of the negro "who wore certain things on his legs and arms which rattled." When asked about gold and silver, the Indians said that they had some metal of the same color as the bells which the Spaniards showed them. This was not made nor found in their country, but came "from a certain mountain where an old woman dwelt." The old woman was called Guatuzaca. One of Alarcon's' informants told him about people who lived farther away than Cibola, in houses made of painted mantles or skins during the summer, and who passed the winter in houses made of wood two or three stories high. The Indian was asked about the leather shields, and in reply described a very great beast like an ox, but more than a hand longer, with broad feet, legs as big as a man's thigh, a head 7 hands long, and the forehead 3 spans across. The eyes of the beast were larger than one's fist, and the horns as long as a man's leg, "out of which grew sharp points an handful long, and the forefeet and hind-feet about seven handfuls big." The tail was large and bushy. To show how tall the animal was, the Indian stretched his arms above his bead. In a note to his translation of this description, Hakluyt suggests, "This might be the crooke backed oxe of Quivira." Although the height and the horns are clearly those of a buck deer, the rest of the description is a very good account of the bison.

The man who told him all this was called ashore, and Alarcon noticed an excited discussion going on among the Indians, which ended in the return of his informant with the news that other white men like himself were at Cibola. Alarcon pretended to wonder at this, and was told that two men had just come from that country, where they had seen white men having "things which shot fire, and swords." These latest reports seemed to make the Indians doubt Alarcon's honesty, and especially his statements that he was a child of the Sun. He succeeded in quieting their suspicions, and learned more about Cibola, with which these people appeared to have quite frequent intercourse. He was told that the strangers at Cibola called themselves Christians, and that they brought with them many oxen like those at Cibola "and other little blacke beastes with wooll and homes." Some of them also had animals upon which they rode, which ran very swiftly. Two of the party that had recently returned from Cibola, had fallen in with two of the