fully appreciated this, though the chief reward
bestowed on the helpers and all the natives was crosses made of sticks
and of paper. These, he informed them by signs, were precious, and
he distributed them in large numbers. The morning after he proclaimed
himself as coming from the sun, many swam out to where the boat was
anchored, contending for the privilege of securing the rope with which
the boat was towed. "And we gave it to them," says Alarcon, "with a good
will, thanking God for the good provision which He gave us to go up the
river."

The interpreter frequently addressed the natives as he went forward, and
at last, on Tuesday night, a man was discovered who understood him. This
man was taken into the boat, and Alarcon, always true his trust, asked
him whether he had seen or heard of any people in the country like
himself, hoping to secure some clue to Coronado. "He answered me no,
saying that he had some time heard of old men that very far from that
country, there were other white men, and with beards like us, and that
he knew nothing else. I asked him also whether he knew a place called
Cibola and a river called Totonteac, and he answered me no."

Coronado meanwhile had arrived at Cibola on July 7th (or 10th) and had
therefore been among the villages of the Rio Grande del Norte nearly two
months. The route to these towns from the lower Colorado, that is, by
the great intertribal highway of southern Arizona, followed the Gila
River, destined afterwards to be traversed by the wandering trappers,
by the weary gold-seeker bound for California, and finally, for a
considerable distance, by the steam locomotive. But it was an unknown
quantity at the time of Alarcon's visit, so far as white men were
concerned. Farther up, Alarcon met with another man who understood his
interpreter, and this man said he had been to Cibola, or Cevola,* as
Alarcon writes it, and that it was a month's journey, "by a path that
went along that river." Alarcon must now have been about at the mouth of
the Gila, and the river referred to was, of course, the Gila. This man
described the towns of Cibola as all who had seen them described them;
that is, large towns of three- or four-storey houses, with windows
on the sides,** and encompassed by walls some seven or eight feet in
height. The pueblos of the Rio Grande valley were well known in every
direction and for long distances. The Apaches, harassing the villagers
on every side, and having them