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