and want of bread which our people stood in. One day it rained
in that plain a great shower of hail as big as oranges, which
caused many tears, weaknesses, and vows.' The wanderer ventured
as far as the Missouri, and would have gone still farther
eastward but for his inability to cross the swollen river.
Cooperating parties explored the upper valleys of the Rio Grande
and Gila, ascended the Colorado for two hundred and forty miles
above its mouth, and visited the Grand Canon of the same river.
Coronado at last returned, satisfied that he had been victimized
by the idle tales of travelers. He was rewarded with contumely
and lost his place as governor of New Galicia; but his romantic
march stands in history as one of the most remarkable exploring
expeditions of modern times."

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was born at Salamanca, in Spain,
about 1500, and died in Mexico some time after 1542. He is believed
to have gone to Mexico in 1535 with Mendoza, the viceroy, who, in
1539, made him governor of a province.

[2] Marcos is here referred to.




THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI BY DE SOTO

(1541)

PARKMAN'S ACCOUNT[1]