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weapons and harness; a sword bearing faintly the name Juan Gallego, one of Coronado's officers. The natives seem to have received them well enough; but these Indians were poor people. Says Castañeda: "Neither gold nor silver nor any trace of either was found among these people. Their lord wore a copper plate on his neck, and prized it highly."

Here El Turco had his fatal taste of the white man's justice, meted out to red men for deceit. As Castañeda tells it: "They asked the Turk why he had lied and had led them so far out of their way. He replied that his homeland was in that direction, and that moreover, the people of Cicuye (Pecos) had asked him to lead them off on the plains and lose them, so that the horses would die when their provisions gave out, and they would be so weak that if they ever returned they could be killed with no trouble; and thus they could take revenge for what had been done to them. This was why he had led them astray, thinking that they knew not how to hunt or to live without corn; as for gold, he knew not where any of it was to be found. He said these words like one who had abandoned hope and thought he was being persecuted, because they had begun to have faith in Isopete, who had guided them better than he had . . . They garroted him, which pleased Isopete very much." The rewards (or perhaps punishment) of Isopete, for bringing the white men to Quivira and real disappointment, Castañeda neglects to mention, however. Possibly the guide was discreet enough to separate himself from such dangerous employers as soon as he was safely in his native Quivira.

It was before the army divided, in Texas, that Coronado's expedition was within easy traveling distance of the wandering army of Hernando de Soto, which had crossed the Mississippi River in May and ascended the Arkansas valley so far that De Soto's westernmost point of exploration apparently was west of and parallel to the easternmost point reached by Coronado in Kansas later. In proof of this close approach of the two great rival exploring conquistadores (known to De Soto but unknown to Coronado), Castaneda tells a strange story. "A painted Indian woman," he says, "ran away from Juan de Saldívar and hid in the ravines about this time, because she recognized the country of Tigeux where she had lived a slave. She fell into the hands of some Spaniards who had entered the country from Florida to explore it in this direction. After I got back to New Spain I heard them say that the Indian told them that she had run away from other men like them nine days, and that she gave the names of some captains; from which we ought to believe that we were not far from the region they discovered, although they said they were more than two hundred leagues inland."

As the main army reached Pecos on its return from Texas, the Spaniards found that pueblo closed to them in a hostile manner, possibly because the people believed they might be punished for having sent El Turco to lead the Spaniards to destruction. But Arellano went on to Tiguex, where he found a few timid Indians had returned to their homes. While he waited for the return of Coronado, Arrelano sent some of his men up the Rio Grande valley to explore that region. They discovered Jemez and Taos and other pueblos and thought they saw traces of silver deposits. Another party descended the Rio Grande as far as the great waste which was later to be known as the Jornada del Muerto. Arellano in person led a de tachment eastward again to deliver punishment to the people of Pecos. Four days of fighting had not resulted in the capture of Pecos, when the news arrived that Coronado was close at hand.

The young general had returned from Qui vira, Castañeda says, in forty days. It would seem that the plains Indians must have guided him southwestward from Quivira by some more direct route than that which he had taken to Quivira from Texas.

The news from Sonora, plus uncertainity as to what was transpiring in New Spain, was enough to cause gloom in that second winter at Tiguex. But to add to the sadness and misery of the Spaniards, the Indians were becoming constantly more revengeful and obstinately unfriendly; and the disil lusionment of the men was now complete, after the vain quests of 1541. As for Coronado, "it happened that one feast day the general went out on horseback to amuse himself as usual, riding with the captain Don Rodrigo Maldonado. He was on a powerful horse, and his servants had put on a new girth, which must have been rotten at the time, for it broke during the race and he fell over on the side where Don Rodrigo was, and as his horse passed over him it hit his head with its hoof, which laid him at the point of death, and his recovery was slow and doubtful." It was an unfortunate moment for Captain López de Cárdenas to return with the news of the fate of San Gerónimo's garrison; and it is not remarkable that when Coronado heard the doleful story "it affected him so much that he had to go back to bed again."

Castañeda, who obviously was no friend of Coronado, now charges that the general, in despair, connived with several of his officers to set the soldiers murmuring their discontent. Apparently they had sufficient grounds for discontent, because they "were almost naked and poorly clothed, full of lice, which they were unable to get rid of or avoid." Presently petitions flowed in upon Coronado, signed by all the soldiers, asking that the expedition return to New Spain. Coronado, according to Castañeda, pretended to be reluctant to meet their requests, at least until his officers agreed with him. "Thus they made it seem as if they ought to return to New Spain, because they had not found riches, nor had they discovered any settled country out of which estates could be formed for all the army. When he had obtained their signatures, the return to New Spain was at once announced, and since nothing can ever be concealed, the double dealing began to be understood, and many of the gentlemen found that they had been deceived and had made a mistake." But Coronado held them to their signed opinions; and so it was decided that in the spring of 1542 they would attempt to return down into New Spain. Two of the friars with the expedition requested and secured permission to remain, with a few Mexican Indian companions, as missionaries among the pueblos. They were Fray Juan de la Padilla and Fray Luis de Escalona, and both seem to have achieved martyrdom among their anticipated converts within a short time after Coronado's departure.

For other reasons, it was highly desirable that the expedition return to New Spain, although they were not fully aware of them. Down in Central Mexico, there had broken out, on April 20, 1541, what is known as the

Episodes of North American history. For all who have come to know and love the charm of the American Southwest, it should serve to link the story of the Hispanic New World to the more familiar story of Anglo-American enterprise in the Western Hemisphere, to show a necessary and desirable kinship between the peoples north and south of the Rio Grande.

The Hopi Snake Dance

and around they circle, stamping furiously each time they cross the plank in front of the kisi, to summon the attention of the gods of the underworld and to tell them that the Hopis are about to dance their great Snake dance. Faster and faster they circle until the reddish brown of their kilts and bodies seem to blend in perfect harmony with the shining sands of the plaza.

Suddenly the leader drops to his knees in front of the kisi. A gnarled old hand we have seen before stretches out and hands him a writhing snake. In another instant he has the snake in his mouth and he is circling the plaza with reckless abandon. The second priest catches up with him, places his arm about the shoulders of the leader, and with a long feather tries to attract the attention of the snake, but is unsuccessful. After dancing around the plaza, the priest drops the snake and returns to the kisi to get another. A third priest with a long feathered stick attempts to keep the snake in the center of the plaza. Another and another group repeats this action, until the the snakes have been taken out. Blue racers, rattlesnakes, sidewinders, with lightning speed, try to evade the dancers, and to escape through the crowd, but the priests keyed up to the frenzy of their dance are swifter than the snakes. We are so fascinated by the rhythm, color, and movement of this strange pageant that all horror and fear of the snakes is forgotten.

The snakes are lured into a great mass in the center of the plaza. The Hopi women of the Snake clan, who have been standing by with flat baskets of sacred corn-meal, quickly sprinkle the Snake priests with the corn-meal. At a signal call from the leader, the Snake priests rush wildly into the writhing mass. Each priest gathers some of the coiling snakes.

This is the climax of the dance. They leave as quickly as they came, their arms full of snakes, and seem to vanish from the plaza, down the steep trail on the side of the mesa, far out into the Painted Desert. Here they set the snakes at liberty, bidding them, “Go to the gods of the underworld and carry the Hopi prayer.

Mixtón War, a last desperate uprising in New Galicia especially; inspired among the Indians, so it is said, by the absence of so many soldiers with Coronado and by the misrule of officials left in charge there.

The retreat from Tiguex probably occupied all of the spring and summer of 1542. Apparently Coronado reported to Mendoza in Mexico City in August; but the data on this obscure journey are so vague and scarce that we cannot be sure of more than that the march began from Culiacán southward on June 24. Thence “the general proceeded, leaving the men who did not want to follow him all along the way, and reached Mexico (City) with less than one hundred men. He made his report to the viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza, who did not receive him very graciously, although he gave him his dis-charge. His reputation was gone from this time on. He kept the government of New Galicia, which had been entrusted to him, for only a short time, when the viceroy took it himself, until the arrival of the court, or audiencia, which still governs it. And,” says Castañeda, “this was the end of those discoveries and the expedition which was made to these new lands.” Coronado seems to have been accused of misgovernment and neglect of his duties as governor of New Galicia. In the fashion of the Spanish colonial government of that day, as a military governor (and the last military governor of New Galicia), he was subjected to a “residencia” or investigation by a court, in 1544, found guilty in September of that year, of permitting the barbarous ill treatment of certain conquered Indians, and deprived of his office. There were many who whispered that Coronado’s real crime lay in not finding profits to justify the costly outlay of Mendoza in equipping the northern expedition. But of course the admirers of Mendoza deny such insinuations. Coronado, in any case, does not seem to have suffered as severely for his failures as did Fray Marcos. He had a rich and lovely wife, Beatriz de Estrada, to console him; and he was not without public and civic dignities, for we know that he served as regidor (alderman) in the council government of Mexico City, an office which Mendoza had secured for him in 1538, and kept that position until his death in 1554. Friends and biographers of Mendoza have tended to cast aspersions upon the character and abilities of Coronado, and probably he was not as high-minded and gallant and able a conquistador as Hernán Cortés, Hernando de Soto, or Vasco Nuñez de Balboa. But if he failed, part of the failure might be imputed to the men who appointed him to command an enterprise beyond his capacity.

The Coronado expedition, moreover, had been of really great importance; for, taken with De Soto’s journey, from which his surviving lieutenant, Luis de Moscoso, brought back the remaining 311 members of the original six hundred to the Pánuco River on September 10, 1543, Coronado’s lines of exploration practically covered half of our Great Southwest by land, and gave a general but adequate idea of the character of the country, the High Plains, the Rio Grande valley, the Gila valley and the Colorado plateau, and the lower Mississippi valley and the region between it and Florida. Coronado’s reports give us a distinct, vivid picture, also, of the Southwest as white men first found them, and our first detailed description of the bison and the people who depended upon them. To understand the importance of his expedition, we should remember likewise the side expeditions, and the exploration of the west coast of North America by sea, then in progress.By and large, as an example of bold pioneering and adventure, the Coronado expedition will safely bear comparison with any of the more glamorous, romantic epiThe visitor to Arizona is greeted with genuine welcome at Arizona's courtesy stations. These stations operate for the benefit of the public.