length only four men survived. These were Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca;
Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, a captain of infantry; Alonzo del Castillo
Maldonado; and Estévanico, who had originally come from the west
coast of Morocco and who was a slave of Dorantes. These men had most
remarkable adventures in the years between 1528 and 1536, and as a
narrative of suffering and privation Cabeza de Vaca's _Journal_ has
hardly an equal in the annals of the continent. Both Dorantes and
Estévanico were captured, and indeed for a season or two all four men
were forced to sojourn among the Indians. They treated the sick, and
with such success did they work that their fame spread far and wide
among the tribes. Crowds followed them from place to place, showering
presents upon them. With Alonzo de Castillo, Estévanico sojourned for
a while with the Yguazes, a very savage tribe that killed its own male
children and bought those of strangers. He at length escaped from these
people and spent several months with the Avavares. He afterwards went
with De Vaca to the Maliacones, only a short distance from the Avavares,
and still later he accompanied Alonzo de Castillo in exploring the
country toward the Rio Grande. He was unexcelled as a guide who could
make his way through new territory. In 1539 he went with Fray Marcos of
Nice, the Father Provincial of the Franciscan order in New Spain, as a
guide to the Seven Cities of Cibola, the villages of the ancestors of
the present Zuñi Indians in western New Mexico. Preceding Fray Marcos
by a few days and accompanied by natives who joined him on the way, he
reached Háwikuh, the southern-most of the seven towns. Here he and all
but three of his Indian followers were killed.

[Footnote 1: Frederick W. Hodge, 3, in _Spanish Explorers in the
Southern United States_, 1528-1543, in "Original Narratives of Early
American History," Scribner's, New York, 1907. Both the Narrative of
Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and the Narrative of the Expedition of