Co1·onado and La Gran Quivira, I5Ji-I544
93
and that the cities were surrounded by walls, with their gates guarded, and were very wealthy, having silversmiths, and that the women wore strings of gold beads and the men girdles of gold and white woolen dresses; and that they had sheep and cows and partridges and slaughter- houses and iron forges." 28 A modern barber might have added electric lights and aeroplanes. Whatever the circumstances "the country was so stirred up by the news ... that nothing else was thought about ... The news of the seven cities inspired so eager a desire in every one that not only did the viceroy and the Marques [Cortes] make ready to start for there, but the whole country wanted to follow them ... The licenses which permitted them to go as soldiers . .. were thought to be as good as a title of nobility at the least ..." 29 In the midst of this enthusiasm Mendoza began active preparations for the expedition to Cibola within six weeks after the return of Fray Marcos. Compostela in Nueva Galicia was designated as the place for the force to assemble. Before the end of January, 1540, the men who were to conquer the pueblos of New Mexico and mard more than a thousand miles beyond, over the great plains of Texas in search of the mythical Quivira, had already gathered at the appointed place. Coronado sets out for Ci.bola. Three hundred horsemen, seventy foot- men, and more than a thousand Indians came to Compostela, ready and anxious to start. Mendoza went in person to review the troops before their departure. 30 On Sunday, February 22, 1540, the whole army filed past the viceroy. "It was a splendid array," declares Winship, "as it passed in review before Mendoza and the officials, who helped and watched him .govern New Spain . . . The young cavaliers curbed the picked horses from the large stock farms of the viceroy, each resplendent in :apacheco y Cardenas, Documentos /11editos, XV, pp. 392-398. In the declaration it is further brought out that Andres Garcia had been given letters by a certain Francisco de Villegas, agent of De Soto in Mexico for the Adela11tado, who was thought to be in Havana at the time. It was this Garcia who feigned illness to
induce the vessel to put in at Havana against the orders of the viceroy. 2 9Suarez de Peralta, "Tratado del descubrimiento de las Yndias . by Jus to 'Zaragoza in Noticias lzistoricas de la Nueva Espa,ia.
" published
3 °Cas taiieda, in his " Narrative," says there were three hundred horsemen, and about eight hundred natives, Winship, op. cit. , 476; Mota Padilla, H istoria, says two hundred sixty horsemen, about seventy footmen, and more than a thousand Indians ; Herrera, op. cit., says one hundred forty horsemen, two hundred footmen. See also Pacheco y Cardenas, ed., Docmnentos /11editos, I, 356.
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