tians. The white men asked them where they lived and whether they possessed any fields sown with corn, and gave each of them little caps for themselves and for their companions. Alarcon did his best to induce some of his men to go to Cibola with a message to Coronado, but all refused except one negro slave, who did not at all want to go. The plan had to be given up, and the party returned to the ships. It had taken fifteen days and a half to ascend the river, but they descended with the swift current in two and a half. The men who had remained in the ships were asked to undertake the mission of opening communication with Coronado, but proved as unwilling as the others.
Much against the will of his subordinates, Alarcon determined to make a second trip up the river, hoping to obtain further information which might enable him to fulfill the purposes of his voyage. He took "three boats filled with wares of exchange, with come and other seedes, hennes and cockes of Castille." Starting September 14, he found the Indians as friendly as before, and ascended the river, as he judged, about 85 leagues, which may have taken him to the point where the canyons. begin. A cross was erected to inform Coronado, in case an expedition from Cibola should reach this part of the river,[1] that he had tried to fulfill his duty, but nothing more was accomplished.[2]
While Alarcon was exploring the river, one of the ships was careened and repaired, and everything made ready for the return voyage. A chapel was built on the shore in honor of Nuestra Señora de Buenaguia, and the river was named the Buenaguia, out of regard for the viceroy, who carried this as his device.
The voyage back to Colima in New Spain was uneventful.
THE JOURNEY OF MELCHIOR DIAZ
In September, 1540, seventy or eighty of the weakest and least reliable men in Coronado's army remained at the town of San Hieronimo, in the valley of Corazones or Hearts. Melchior Diaz was placed in command of the settlement, with orders to maintain this post and protect the road between Cibola and New Spain, and also to attempt to find some means of communicating with the fleet under Alarcon. After he had established everything in the town as satisfactorily as possible, Diaz selected twenty-five of these men to accompany him on an exploring expedition to the seacoast. He started before the end of September, going into the rough country west of Corazones valley, and finding only a few naked, weak-spirited Indians, who had come, as he understood, from the land on the farther side of the water, i. e., Lower
- ↑ See Castañeda'a account of the finding of similar message by the party under Diaz.
- ↑ The account of this trip in Herrera (dec. vi, lib. ii, cap. xv, ed. 1728) is as follows: "Haviendo llegado á ciertas Montañas, adonde el Rio se estrechaba mucho, supo, que vn Encantador andaba preguntando por donde havia de pasar, y haviendo entendido, que per el Rio, puso desdade vna Ribera à la otra algunas Cañas, que debian de ser hechicadas; pero las Barcas pasaron sin daño; y haviendo llogado mui arriba, preguntando por cosas de la Tierra, para entender, si descubriri alguna noticia de Francisco Vazquez de Cornado. . . . Viendo Alarcon, que no hallaba lo que deseaba, i que baria subido por aquel Rio 85 Legnas, determino de bolver.". . .
