substance. The utmost Coronado could do was to set up a
cross and claim this wide region in the name of his master; and his chief
satisfaction was in strangling El Turco for his many embellished lies.

We shall not describe the return journey, though it was not lacking in
interesting incidents. Finally, having lost many of their horses, being
harassed by the Indians, and suffering from want of provisions, the
way-worn army reached known soil in the valley of Culiacan. Here all
discipline was at an end, and the disorganized army straggled for leagues
down the valley, all Coronado's entreaties failing to restore any order to
the ranks.

At length the sorely disappointed commander presented himself before the
viceroy Mendoza, with scarcely a hundred ragged followers who alone
remained with him of the splendid cavalcade with which he had set out.

Thus ends the story of the last of the conquistadores, who had found only
villages of barbarians and tribes of half-naked savages, and returned
empty-handed from his long chase after the Will-o' the-wisp of Quivira and
its fleeting treasures. Little did he dream that Quivira would yet become
the central region of one of the greatest civilized nations of the world,
and rich in productions beyond his most avaricious vision.

THE FAITHFUL MIRANDA AND THE LOVERS OF ARGENTINA.

The early history of America has few romantic tales of love and devotion,
but there is one woven in with the history of the settlement of Buenos
Ayres, the modern Argentina, which is told by all the historians of the
time, and which exists as the one striking love romance of the Spanish
conquest. It has been doubted, it is true, but it will not to do to
dismiss all the chivalrous tales of the past on the plea that historical
critics have questioned them.

It may not be generally known to our readers that the man who explored and
took possession of the great rivers of Buenos Ayres for Spain was
Sebastian Cabot, he who, many years before, had with his father discovered
North America in the service of England. It was in the year 1526 that he
sailed up the noble river which he named the Rio de la Plata, a name
suggested by the bars of silver which he obtained from the Indians on its
banks. Sailing some hundred miles up the Paraguay River, he built at the
mouth of the river Zarcaranna a stronghold which he named the Fort of the
Holy Ghost. Some three years later Cabot set sail for Spain, leaving Nuno