Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/202

188 in a very short time repeated on many tongues, and it shared the usual fate of stories transmitted verbally in being added to, exaggerated, and colored in the imaginations of those through whom it successively passed. The original account, by which all these falsifications might have been corrected, was not given to the public, and the officers, using Coronado as their instrument, suffered only the most flattering parts of it to be put forward. What Pray Marcos said of gold was from hearsay, and was so represented by him. It, moreover, did not relate to Cibola, but to a region much farther south. His accounts also agree with those which Alarcon received concerning Cibola from the Indians on the Colorado River.

As is always the case when the passion of the multitude turns against a single man, no regard was paid in this instance to the voice of reason. Fray Marcos was no longer sure of his lif e in Zuni; the Spaniards, who had deceived themselves, made him responsible for their mistake, and concern was felt for his safety. Coronado had a report of his success to send to the viceroy. Juan Gallego was commissioned to carry it, and the Franciscan went with him. He was even then Padre Provinzial of the order in and for Mexico. He died in the capital on March 25, 1558. The sufferings which the cool climate of New Mexico and the innumerable hardships of his journeys caused him had culminated in paralysis in Cibola, and it is not improbable that it was this and not fear of violence from those around him that moved him to return to Mexico.