pack-saddles, besides the load which they carry on top, and the load may be, according to the dog, from 35 to 50 pounds. It is 30 leagues, or even more, from Cibola to these plains where they went. The plains stretch away beyond, nobody knows how far. The captain, Francisco Vazquez, went farther across the plains, with 30 horsemen, and Friar Juan de Padilla with him; all the rest of the force returned to the settlement at the river to wait for Francisco Vazquez, because this was his command. It is not known whether he has returned.
The country is so level that men became lost when they went off half a league. One horseman was lost, who never reappeared, and two horses, all saddled and bridled, which they never saw again. No track was left of where they went, and on this account it was necessary to mark the road by which they went with cow dung, so as to return, since there were no stones or anything else.
Marco Polo, the Venetian, in his treatise, in chapter 15, relates and says that (he saw) the same cows, with the same sort of hump; and in the same chapter he says that there are sheep as big as horses.
Nicholas, the Venetian, gave an account to Micer Pogio, the Florentine, in his second book, toward the end, which says that in Ethiopia there are oxen with a hump, like camels, and they have horns 3 cubits long, and they carry their horns up over their backs, and one of these horns makes a wine pitcher.
Marco Polo, in chapter 134, says that in the country of the Tartars, toward the north, they have dogs as large or little smaller than asses. They harness these into a sort of cart and with these enter a very miry country, all a quagmire, where other animals can not enter and come out without getting submerged, and on this account they take dogs.
