To relate how the army that was on its way to Cibola got on: Everything went along in good shape, since the general had left everything peaceful, because he wished the people in that region to be contented and without fear and willing to do what they were ordered. In a province called Vacapan there was a large quantity of prickly pears, of which the natives make a great deal of preserves.[1] They gave this preserve away freely, and as the men of the army ate much of it, they all fell sick with a headache and fever, so that the natives might have done much harm to the force if they had wished. This lasted regularly twenty-four hours. After this they continued their march until they reached Chichilticalli. The men in the advance guard saw a flock of sheep one day after leaving this place. I myself saw and followed them. They had extremely large bodies and long wool; their horns were very thick and large, and when they run they throw back their heads and but their horns on the ridge of their back. They are used to the rough country, so that we could not catch them and had to leave them.[2]
Three days after we entered the wilderness we found a horn on the bank of a river that flows in the bottom of a very steep, deep gully, which the general had noticed and left there for his army to see, for it was six feet long and as thick at the base as a man's thigh. It seemed to be more like the horn of a goat than of any other animal. It was something worth seeing. The army proceeded and was about a day's march from Cibola when a very cold tornado came up in the afternoon, followed by a great fall of snow, which was a bad combination for the carriers. The army went on till it reached some caves in a rocky ridge, late in the evening. The Indian allies, who were from New Spain, and for the most part from warm countries, were in great danger. They felt the coldness of that day so much that it was hard work the next day taking care of them, for they suffered much pain and had to be carried on the horses, the soldiers walking. After this labor the army reached Cibola, where their general was waiting for them, with their quarters all ready, and here they were reunited, except some captains and men who had gone off to discover other provinces.
Chapter 11, of how Don Pedro de Tovar discovered Tusayan or Tutahaco[3] and Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas saw the Firebrand river and the other things that had happened.
While the things already described were taking place, Cibola being at peace, the General Francisco Vazquez found out from the people of the
- ↑ The Zuñis make a similar sort of preserves from the fruit of the tuna and the yucca. See Cushing in The Millstone, Indianapolis, July, 1884, ii]). 108-109.
- ↑ Compare the Spanish text for this whole description. Mota Padilla, sec. xxii, 6, p. H:i. says: "Chichilticali (que quiere decir casa colorada, por una que estaba en él embarrada con tierra colorada, que llaman almagre); aquí so hallaron pinos con grandes piñas de piñoues muy buenos; y mas adelante, en la ciuiade unas peñas, se hallaron cahezas de carneros de grandes cuernos, y algunos dijeron haber visto tres ó cuatro carneros de aquellos, y que eran muy ligeros (de estos animales se han visto en el Catay, que es la Tartaria.)"
- ↑ Compare chapter 13. These two groups of pueblos were not the same.
