These Men And The Care Of The New Settlement Were Left To Melchior Diaz, With Orders To Protect The Road Between Cibola And New Spain, And Also To Attempt To Find Some Means Of Communicating With The Vessels Under Alarcon.

Diaz, with twenty-five selected men, started for the seacoast, went to the Gulf, across to the coast, back again up the river, where he found Alarcon's cross, and eventually returned to San Hieronimo, there to meet with death by an accident.

Owing to the habit of the Indians at the lower portion of the river of warming themselves in cold weather with a burning stick, Diaz called the river El Rio del Tizon - the River of the Firebrand.

Disaster Comes to the Spaniards. Disappointed at what he had found at Cibola and Tiguex, Coronado now decided to go with his whole army to a place which had been described to him in most glowing terms by an Indian. He told of a place of fabulous wealth named Quivera, and, says the ancient historian: "He gave such a clear account of what he told, as if it was true and he had seen it, that it seemed plain afterward that the devil was speaking in him." Carried away by these glowing visions of wealth, Coronado sent Tovar back to San Hieronimo. Melchior Diaz was dead, and the little settlement was in an excitement, because one of the soldiers had just been killed by a poisoned arrow, shot by one of the natives. In trying to punish this offence, owing to the folly of the officer sent by Tovar in charge of the primitive force, seventeen more soldiers were killed by poisoned arrows, so that the ensign hastily abandoned the place, and moved with his sadly reduced force forty leagues toward Cibola, into a valley called Suya. From this point, he ultimately collected the best of his men, and marched on to Tiguex, to find Coronado already gone on his heartbreaking expedition to Quivera.

Coronado Returns to New Spain. After long and fruitless search, Coronado returned to New Spain, a disappointed man, disgraced and discarded. Tovar returned with him, but doubtless later found congenial work in other fields.

CHAPTER XXV. Fray Marcos And Garces, And Their Connection With The Grand Canyon

Hotel and Stations Named for Spanish Priests. At Williams, the gateway to the Canyon, the Santa Fe Railway Company recently has erected a typical Mission style hotel, to which the name of Fray Marcos has been given. Here Canyon visitors who stop off between trains find excellent accommodations. At Needles, California, on the Colorado River, is another reinforced concrete building, named after another Franciscan priest, Francisco Garces. Both Fray Marcos and El Garces are managed by Fred Harvey, who also has charge of El Tovar Hotel. The history of this part of the Southwest for the last thirty years cannot be written without mention of this masterful man, who made railway meal service a fine art. In accordance with a policy established some time ago by the Santa Fe Company, the architecture of their station hotels conforms to the Spanish Mission styles, as far as possible, and they are given names of those who are inseparably connected with the romantic history of this region.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 129 of 167
Words from 66091 to 66634 of 85893