Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/166

152 All that can be definitely gathered from the scanty ethnographic information which the monk has left is, that even tribes that spoke the same language were separated from one another by uninhabited tracts. When he had crossed the Gila there lay before him a wide, depopulated district which he calls a desert (desierto). This word should be understood, however, not in the sense of a dry, barren region, but simply of a country without inhabitants. On the other side of this land, forsaken or neglected by men, far in the north, lay Cibola. The missionary entered upon the passage of that desert region with a numerous company, and it was midsummer when the Indians of his retinue at last assured him that only a few days' journey separated him from the long-sought spot. Then natives met him who flocked around him trembling and distressed, with all the evidences of great trouble. Their scanty clothing was torn, and they appeared to be starved and exhausted by long flight. They were men who had been with Estévanico, and brought bad news.

The negro had arrived at Cibola a little while before, and had behaved there in his peculiar reckless manner. So much, and no more, was disclosed in the confused expressions which Fray Marcos obtained from his agitated and frightened informants. Some of them had soon perceived that their presence was not welcome to the inhabitants of the place, and had concealed themselves in the vicinity. Others remained with the black. Trustworthy details of what occurred afterward are wanting, for the catastrophe appears to have taken place in the