The army which had stayed with Don Tristan de Arellano started to follow their general, all loaded with provisions, with lances on their shoulders, and all on foot, so as to have the horses loaded. With no slight labor from day to day, they reached a province which Cabeza de Vaca had named Hearts (Corazones), because the people here offered him many hearts of animals.[1] He founded a town here and named it San Hieronimo de los Corazones (Saint Jerome of the Hearts). After it bad been started, it was seen that it could not be kept up here, and so it was afterward transferred to a valley which had been called Señora.[2] The Spaniards call it Señora, and so it will be known by this name.
From here a force went down the river to the seacoast to find the harbor and to find out about the ships. Don Rodrigo Maldonado, who was captain of those who went in search of the ships, did not find them, but he brought back with him an Indian so large and tall that the best man in the army reached only to his chest. It was said that other Indians were even taller on that coast. After the rains ceased the army went on to where the town of Señora was afterward located, because there were provisions in that region, so that they were able to wait there for orders from the general.
About the middle of the month of October,[3] Captains Melchior Diaz and Juan Gallego came from Cibola, Juan Gallego on his way to New Spain and Melchior Diaz to stay in the new town of Hearts, in command of the men who remained there. He was to go along the coast in search of the ships.
Chapter 10, of how the army started from the town of Señora, leaving it inhabited, and how it reached Cibola, and of what happened to Captain Melchior Diaz on his expedition in search of the ships and how he discovered the Tison {Firebrand) river.
After Melchior Diaz and Juan Gallego had arrived in the town of Señora, it was announced that the army was to depart for Cibola; that Melchior Diaz was to remain in charge of that town with 80 men; that Juan Gallego was going to New Spain with messages for the viceroy, and that Friar Marcos was going back with him, because he did not think it was safe for him to stay in Cibola, seeing that his report had
- ↑ Oviedo, Historia, vol. iii. lib. xxxv, cap. vi, p. 610 (ed. 1853), says of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions: "Pues passadas las sierras ques dicho, llegaron estos quatro chripstianos. . . á tres pueblos que estaban juntos é pequeños, en que avia hasta veynte casas en elios, las quales eran como las passadas é juntas, . . . á este pueblo, ó mejor diçiendo pueblos juntos, nombraron los chripstianos la Villa de los Coraçones, porque les dieron alli más de seysçientos coraçones de venados escalades é secos." Cabeza de Vaca describes this place in his Naufragios, p. 172 of Smith's translation.
- ↑ It is possible that the persistent use of the form Señora, Madame, for the place Souora, may be due to the copyists, although it is as likely that the Spanish settlers made the change in their common parlance.
- ↑ This should be September. See the next chapter; also the Itinerary.
nienes. Aunque qo esta mas de 3712 grados de la Equinocial: que sino fuesse por las montañas, seria del temple de Sevilla. Las famoasas siete ciudades de fray Marcos de Niça, que estan en espacio de seys leguas. ternan obra de 4,000 hombres. Las riquezas de su reyno es no tener que comer, ni que vestir, durãdo la nieve siete meses."
