* The tribes and bands spoken of by Alarcon cannot be identified, but
these Quicomas, or Quicamas, were doubtless the same as the Quiquimas
mentioned by Kino, 1701, and Garces, 1775. They were probably of
Yuman stock. The Cumanas were possibly Mohaves.


While he was striving to find a way of reaching the main body of the
expedition, which during this time was complacently robbing the
Puebloans on the Rio Grande, two officers of that expedition were
marching through the wilderness endeavouring to find him, and a third
was travelling toward the Grand Canyon. One of these was Don Rodrigo
Maldonado, thus bearing exactly the same name as one of Alarcon's
officers; another was Captain Melchior Diaz, and the third Don Lopez
de Cardenas, who distinguished himself on the Rio Grande by
particular brutality toward the villagers. Don Rodrigo went in search
of the ships down the river to the coast from the valley of
Corazones, but obtained no information of them, though he met with
giant natives and brought back with him one very tall man as a
specimen. The main army of Coronado had not yet gone from this valley
of Corazones, where the settlement called San Hieronimo had been
established, and the best man in it reached only to the chest of this
native giant.

The army moved on to another valley, where a halt was made to await
orders from the general. At length, about the middle of September,
Melchior Diaz came back from Cibola, with dispatches, accompanied by
Juan Gallegos, who bore a message for the viceroy. In their company
also was the miserable Friar Marcos, pursuing his dismal return to
New Spain by direction of the general, who considered it unsafe for