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[40k] perhaps not far from Isletta;1 and in five
Chap. II.} 1540.
days more, he reached Cicuye, on the river Pecos. But he found there nothing of note, except an Indian who told of Quivira, a country to the north-east, the real land of the buffalo, abounding in gold and silver, and watered by tributaries of a river which was two leagues wide.

The Spanish camp for the winter was established near Tiguex; there Alvarado brought the Indian who professed to know the way to Quivira; there Coronado himself appeared, after a tour among eight more southern villages; and there his army, which had reached Zuni without loss, arrived in December, suffering on its march from storms of snow and cold.

The people who had thus far been discovered, had a civilization intermediate between that of the Mexicans and the tribes of hunters. They dwelt in fixed places of abode, built for security against roving hordes of savages, on tables of land that spread out upon steep natural castles of sandstone. Each house was large enough to contain three or four hundred persons, and consisted of one compact parallelogram, raised of mud, hardened in the sun, or of stones, cemented by a mixture of ashes, earth and charcoal for lime; usually three or four stories high, with terraces, inner balconies and a court, having no entrance on the ground floor; accessible from without only by ladders, which in case of alarm might be drawn inside. All were equal. There was no king or chief exercising supreme authority; no caste of

1 A comparison of the letters of Coronado and of Jaramillo in Ramusio, and of the narrative of CastaƱeda in Ternaux-Compans, with the narrative of Espejo in Hakluyt, III. 457, ed. 1810, and the ancient maps of New Mexico, confirm the opinion of Kern in Schoolcraft, IV. 34, on the position of Tiguex.

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