Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/234

220 which canoes sailed with forty rowers, their bows richly adorned with gold. He declared that the vessels in that country were made of silver and gold. With keen craftiness he had watched the Spaniards, and had discovered that they esteemed gold more than copper, and had learned to appreciate the difference between the two metals even in weight. Gold, he intimated, was abundant at "Arche" or "Arahei," but "Quivira" was the place to which he would take the Spaniards before all others, and where he promised them the precious metal in profusion.

The Rio Grande Valley was quiet, and Coronado set about beginning the march to Quivira. The whole army followed him, while Pedro de Tobar was in the meantime to come up with reinforcements from Sonora; for written orders had been left for him with the Indians of Zuñi to follow Coronado, guiding himself by the wooden crosses which he would erect from time to time. The Spaniards left Bernalillo May 5th, and entered Pecos on the 9th. The tribe received and entertained them gladly.

I have in the preceding pages referred to six linguistic stocks with which Coronado had so far come in contact in New Mexico. Only five of them have been named to this point, viz., those of Zuñi, Tigua, Piro, Pecos or Jemez, and Queres. The sixth is never designated with a name, but is inferred from the scanty account of the route from Bernalillo to Pecos.

This route is not hard to follow. Coronado could reach Pecos from the Rio Grande only by going up that river to the vicinity of San Felipe, and then turning in toward the pueblo of "Tunque." There Alvarado had probably already come in contact with