his tribesmen of the Moroccan deserts today love it; and only in the desert could he enjoy it. Lifted again out of the thrall of slavery, which had fastened on him after his great journey from Florida, and given command of some three hundred savages to discover the cities of argent traceries and turquoise doors, he had made his tour like an Oriental chieftain, or like a Moorish prince before the Conquest, with pomp and display and the revels of power. Gifts were brought him and tribute was exacted. His tall, dusky body soon flaunted robes dyed with the colors of the rainbow. Tufts of brilliant feathers and strings of bells dangled from his arms and legs. He carried a magical gourd, decorated with bells and with one white and one scarlet feather; and sent it ahead of him to awe the natives in each town where he demanded entrance. A score, perhaps, of Indians formed his personal retinue and bore on their shoulders the provisions, the turquoises, mantles, and feathered ornaments accumulated on the road. Flutes of reeds, shell fifes, and fish-skin drums played his march across the sunlit mesas. And an ever increasing harem of gayly bedecked young women swelled the parade of Estevanico, the black Berber chief, on his way to the city set in silver and blue.

Perhaps, as has been suggested, the belled and feathered gourd was "bad medicine" to the Indians of Hawikuh; for, when Estevanico's messenger presented it with the announcement that their lord was come to make peace and to cure the sick, the Indians became enraged and ordered the interlopers out of their country on pain of death. Estevanico, disdaining fear, went on. Just outside the walls of Cíbola he was seized. The "sun

was about a lance high" when the men of Hawikuh suddenly launched their arrows upon his followers. Some of those who, fleeing, looked back, thought they had seen Estevanico fall beneath that thick hail of darts.

"It is to be believed that a long time ago, when roofs lay over the walls of Kya-ki-me, when smoke hung over the house-tops, and the ladder-rounds were still unbroken in Kya-ki-me, then the Black Mexicans came from their abodes in Everlasting Summerland. . . . Then and thus was killed by our ancients, right where the stone stands down by the arroyo of Kya-ki-me, one of the Black Mexicans, a large man, with chilli lips [lips swollen from chilli peppers]. Then the rest ran away, chased by our grandfathers, and went back toward their country in the Land of Everlasting Summer."

...

So, in part, runs the Zuñi legend, today, concerning the coming and the death of Estevanico, the Black.'

Fray Marcos was not only depressed by the news of Estevanico's capture, but he was in danger. The Indians accompanying him, from various villages along his route, had looked on him as a holy man, invulnerable, under the special protection of the morning and evening star, whose sign he made with his fingers in prayer and erected in wood along his way; for so did they construe the cross, their own symbol for the mystical glory heralding the dawn and the night. Now they were afraid. The friar, after prayer for guidance, opened his bales and, by means of gifts, entreaties, and threats, persuaded them to go on. information that surely pointed to Estevanico's death-brought by more Indians, wounded and bleeding - did not deter him. He would at least have a glimpse of that city, if he might not enter it. So from a plateau, looking north, Fray Marcos saw the pueblo of Hawikuh on a bare hill outlined against the high timbered flank of the Zuñi Mountains. Through the rarefied air, to which

I

Even

Lowery, Spanish Settlements, pp. 281-82, as transcribed by Frank Cushing, authority on Zuñi lore and a Zuñi by adoption.

the monk's eyes were not accustomed, the pueblo appeared much nearer than it was and therefore much larger. He raised a mound of stones, surmounted by a little cross, "having no implements at hand to make it larger," and took possession of the city he could see and of all cities beyond which he could not see—and named them the New Kingdom of San Francisco. Then he hastened after his Indians, who had not waited for him, on the homeward trail. "I returned," he says, "with more fear than victuals." In spite of the changed demeanor of the tribe on his way back, he reached New Galicia in safety.

In the City of Mexico the descriptions by Fray Marcos of the great city, as he believed he had seen it with his very eyes, caused a tumult. Another Mexico had at last been found! The discovery was proudly proclaimed from every pulpit. It passed from mouth to mouth among the cavalier adventurers, dicing and dueling away their time and impatient for richer hazards and hotter work for their swords. Such a tale loses nothing by oft telling. It may be that the enthusiasm of his audiences even confused the monk's memory somewhat, as he told the story over and over, even to his barber; for he pictured those distant cities as a

paradise on earth, until nothing was now thought of by any man but how to reach Cíbola and be rich forevermore.

In a few weeks Mendoza had enlisted a company of three hundred to serve under Coronado. The majority were of the gentry. Coronado assembled his men at Compostela, near the Pacific coast in New Galicia, in February, 1540; and thither went the Viceroy the long journey from Mexico to send them off with appropriate pomp. It was the most brilliant review yet held in New Spain. Most of the cavaliers were astride of the best horses from the stock farms, and had equipped them with colored blankets trailing almost to the ground, besides leathern armor and silver-mounted harness. Their own mail was polished like woven silver, and the tips of their lances, held erect, flickered in the sun like sparks of fire. Their helmets were of iron or tough bullhide. In their train marched the foot soldiers armed with crossbow and arquebus, some, too, with swords and shield. The third division of the army was composed of several hundred Indian allies, their naked bodies splashed with black, ocher, and vermilion; and their faces, painted terribly for war, surmounted by the green and yellow and crimson plumage of parrots. At