%12.  “The Seven Cities of Cibola."%—­The story these men told of the strange country through which they had passed, aroused a strong desire in the Spaniards to explore it, for somewhere in that direction they believed were the Seven Cities.  According to an ancient legend, when the Arabs invaded the Spanish peninsula, a bishop of Lisbon with many followers fled to a group of islands in the Sea of Darkness, and on them founded seven cities.  As one of the Indian tribes had preserved a story of Seven Caves in which their ancestors had once lived, the credulous and romantic Spaniards easily confounded the two legends.  Firmly believing that the seven cities must exist in the north country traversed by Vaca, Mendoza, the Spanish governor of Mexico, selected Fray Marcos, a monk of great ability, and sent him forth with a few followers to search for them.  Directed by the Indians through whose villages he passed, he came at last in sight of the seven Zuni (zoo’-nyee) pueblos (pweb’-loz) of New Mexico, all of which were inhabited in his time.  But he came no nearer than just within sight of them.  For one of the party, who went on in advance, having been killed by the Zuni, Fray Marcos hurried back to Culiacan.  Understanding the name of the city he had seen to be Cibola (see’-bo-la), he called the pueblos the “Seven Cities of Cibola,” and against them the next year (1540) Coronado marched with 1100 men.  Finding the pueblos were not the rich cities for which he sought, Coronado pushed on eastward, and for two years wandered to and fro over the plains and mountains of the West, crossing the state of Kansas twice.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Do not fail to read a delightful little book called The Spanish Pioneers, by Charles F. Lummis.  In it the story of these great journeys is told on pp. 77-88, 101-143.]

[Illustration:  The kind of cities found by Marcos and Coronado in the Rio Grande valley.]

[Illustration:  CORONADO’S EXPEDITION 1540]

%13.  The Spaniards on the Mississippi.%—­In 1537 De Soto was appointed governor of Cuba, with instructions to conquer and hold all the country discovered by Narvaez.  On this mission he set out in May, 1539, and landed at Tampa Bay, on the west coast of our state of Florida.  He wandered over the swamps and marshes, the moss-grown jungles, and the forests of the Gulf states, and spent the winter of 1541 near the Yazoo River.  Crossing the Mississippi in the spring of 1542 at the Chickasaw Bluffs, he wandered about eastern Arkansas, till he died of fever, and was buried in the Mississippi.  His followers then built rude boats, floated down the river to the Gulf, steered along the coast of Texas, and in September, 1543, reached Tampico, in Mexico.