Our Catleolic Heritage m Texas
98
hours, and venerated a gold crucifix and the image of a woman, the Queen of Heaven." 39 The gross exaggerations of El Turco, although evident, were willingly and enthusiastically believed in by the disappointed Spaniards. His habit of lying was exemplified in his very first story told to Coronado. After giving his glowing account of Quivira, he said that the chief of Cicuye had taken from him two gold bracelets, when he was made a slave. Alvarado was sent to recover them but the chief, the friendly and hos- pitable Bigotes, explained that El Turco had told a deliberate falsehood, because the bracelets which he claimed had been taken from him, were nothing more than a fabrication of his imagination. The Spaniards would have done well to have placed more confidence in the declarations of Bigotes and the old cacique. But the explorers were blinded by their thirst for gold. They put the two chiefs in chains, and kept them prisoners until the following spring. 40 It was now winter. To undertake an expedition to Quivira was out of the question. But the wealth of this mythical kingdom was magnified a thousandfold during the long winter vigils in Tiguex and the sur- rounding pueblos. By the time spring came, practically every man was determined to go with the general in quest of the golden land of Quivira. Some of the officers, a few who had begun to distrust the stories told by the Indians in general, discouraged by the many hardships of the winter just passed, advised Coronado not to undertake the long journey with the entire body of the expedition, but to send a scouting party in advance. Suspicions of the veracity of El Turco had arisen and it was rumored that he had communication with the devil. Cervantes, his guard, solemnly declared that "he had seen the Turk talking with the devil in a pitcher of water." 41 But the dissenting voices of a few persons with sound judg- ment were drowned in the all-enveloping and loudly proclaimed desires of others for gold and adventure. Coronado must have felt deep down in his heart th.at he could not return to the viceroy empty-handed. Any chance was better than the admission of failure without a trial. Coronado's nzarcle to Quivira. As soon as the ice on the Rio Grande melted, on April 23, 1541, the expedition was set in motion, going first to Cicuye, where Bigotes, who had been held a prisoner, was released.
3 9G6mara, Historia de los Indios, 196. 40 /bid., 432; Lowery, op. cit., 318 . 41 Castaiieda, "Narrative," in Winship, np. cit., 432.
Powered by FlippingBook