第76章 CHAPTER XXIV(3)

Castaneda's Account of their Experiences in the Canyon. "The General had sent Don Pedro de Tovar to these villages with seventeen horsemen, and three or four foot soldiers..Juan de Padilla, a Franciscan friar, who had been a fighting man in his youth, went with them. When they reached the region, they entered the country so quietly that nobody observed them, because there were no settlements or farms between one village and another and the people do not leave the villages except to go to their farms, especially at this time, when they had heard that Cibola had been captured by very fierce people, who traveled on animals who ate people. This information was generally believed by those who had never seen horses, although it was so strange as to cause much wonder. Our men arrived after nightfall and were able to conceal themselves under the edge of the village, where they heard the natives talking in their houses. But in the morning they were discovered, and drew up in regular order, while the natives went out to meet them, with bows and shields, and wooden clubs, drawn up in lines without any confusion. The interpreter was given a chance to speak to them and to give them one warning, for they were very intelligent people, but nevertheless they drew lines and insisted that our men should not go across these lines toward their village. While they were talking some men acted as if they would cross the lines, and one of the natives lost control of himself and struck a horse a blow on the check of the bridle with his club. Friar Juan, fretted by the time that was being wasted in talking with them, said to the captain, 'To tell the truth, I do not know why we came here.' When the men heard this, they gave the Santiago (The Battle Cry of Spain), so suddenly that they ran down many Indians and the others fled to the town in confusion. Some indeed did not have a chance to do this, so quickly did the people in the villages come out with presents, asking for peace. The captain ordered his force to collect, and, as the natives did not do any more harm, he and those who were with him found a place to establish new headquarters near the village. They had dismounted here when the natives came peacefully, saying that they had come to give in the submission of the whole province and that they wanted him to be friends with them and to accept the presents which they gave him. This was some cotton cloth, although not much, because they do not make it in that district. They also gave him some dressed skins and some corn meal, and pine nuts, and corn and birds of the country. Afterward they presented some turquoises, but not many. The people of the whole district came together that day and submitted themselves, and they allowed him to enter their villages freely to visit, buy, sell, and barter with them.

"It is governed like Cibola, by an assembly of the oldest men. They have their governors and generals. This was where they obtained the information about a large river, and that several days down the river there were some people with very large bodies.

"As Don Pedro de Tovar was not commissioned to go farther, he returned from there, and gave this information to the general, who dispatched Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas with about twelve companions to go to see this river. He was well received when he reached Tusayan and was well entertained by the natives, who gave him guides for his journey. They started from here loaded with provisions, for they had to go through a desert country before reaching the inhabited region, which the Indians said was more than twenty days journey. After they had gone twenty days, they came to the banks of the river, which seemed to be more than three or four leagues above the stream which flowed between them. This country was elevated and full of low, twisted pines, very cold, and lying open toward the north, so that, this being the warm season, no one could live there on account of the cold.

They spent three days on this bank looking for a passage down to the river, which looked from above as if the water was six feet across, although the Indians said that it was half a league wide. It was impossible to descend, for after these three days Captain Melgosa and one Juan Galeras and another companion, who were the three lightest and most agile men, made an attempt to go down at the least difficult place, and went down until those who were above were unable to keep sight of them. They returned about four o'clock in the afternoon, not having succeeded in reaching the bottom on account of the great difficulties which they found, because what seemed to be easy from above was not so, but instead very hard and difficult. They said that they had been down about a third of the way and that the river seemed very large from the place that they reached, and that from what they saw the Indians had given the width correctly. Those who stayed above had estimated that some huge rocks on the side of the cliffs seemed to be about as tall as a man, but those who went down swore that when they reached these rocks they were bigger than the great tower of Seville. They did not go farther up the river because they could not get water. Before this they had to go a league or two inland every day late in the evening in order to find water, and the guides said that if they should go four days farther, it would not be possible to go on, because there was no water within three or four days, for when they travel across this region themselves they take with them women loaded with water in gourds, and bury the gourds of water along the way to use when they return, and besides this, they travel in one day what it takes us two days to accomplish.