Page:The Coronado expedition, 1540-1542.djvu/156

 In the bibliography are the references to the exact location of the Spanish texts from which I have translated the other narratives. I am not aware that any of these have been translated entire, although Mr Bandelier has quoted from them extensively in his Documentary History of Zuñi.

There is one other account of the Coronado expedition which might have been included in the present volume. Mota Padilla wrote his Historia dela Nueva Galicia two centuries after the return of Coronado, but he had access to large stores of contemporary documents concerning the early history of New Spain, most of which have since been destroyed. Among these documents were those belonging to Don Pedro de Tovar, one of the captains in Coronado's army. Mota Padilla's account of this expedition is nearly if not quite as valuable as that of Castañeda, and supplements the latter in very many details. The length of the narrative and the limitations inevitable to any work of this nature forced me to abandon the idea of translating it for the present memoir. Much of the text of Mota Padilla will be found, however, in the notes to the translation of Castañeda, while the second half of the historical introduction is based primarily on Mota Padilla's narrative, and a large portion of it is little more than a free rendering of this admirable work.



Cosa por sierto me parece muy magnifico señor liçeta y que es exerçiçio de hombres virtuosos el desear saber y querer adquirir para su memoria la noticia berdadera de las cosas acasos aconteçidos en partes remotas de que se tiene poca noticia lo qual yo no culpo algunas personas especulatiuas que por uentura con buen çelo por muchas ueces me an sido inportunos no poco rogadome les dixese y aclarase algunas dudas que tenian de cosas particulares q al bulgo auian oydo en cosas y casos acontecidos en la jornada de cibola o tierra nueba que el buen uisorey que dios aya en su gloria don Antonio de Mendoca ordeno y hiço haçer donde embio por general capitan a francisco nasques de coronado y a la berdad ellos tienen raçon de querer saber la nerdad porque como el bulgo muy muchas ueces y cosas que an oydo y por uentura a quien de ellas no tubo noticia ansi las hacen mayores o menores que ellas son y las que son algo las hacen nada y las no tales las hacen tā admirables que pareçen cosas no creederas podria tan bien