impressions of first direct acquaintance with the subject, must be added the "Relacion postrera de Sivola" contained in a manuscript by father Toribio de Paredes, surnamed Motolinia, and known as the Libro de Oro, etc., which is an augmented and slightly modified version of that celebrated missionary's history of the Mexicans. It is a condensed report that had reached Mexico after Coronado had left for Quivira and before his return had become known. Its allusion to the Rio Grande Pueblos and to Pecos is not without value, although it adds little to what is contained in the sources previously mentioned. On the Indians of the Plains it is, comparatively speaking, more explicit. The general tone of the document is one of sobriety. The "Relacion del Suceso," published in the Documentos Inéditos de Indias under the erroneous date of 1531, is similar to the foregoing, but is more detailed in some respects and covers a longer period of time. It manifestly was written in New Mexico by a member of the expedition, but there is no clue as yet to the name of the author. It is a useful corollary to the other contemporary sources.

Although written more than two centuries after Coronado's march, the references to it and to New Mexico contained in the Historia de la Nueva Galicia, by the licentiate Matias de la Mota Padilla, find a place here, since the author asserts that he derived much of his information from papers left by Pedro de Tovar, one of Coronado's chief lieutenants. Mota Padilla generally confirms the data furnished by the earlier documents, and adds some additional information. It is however quite impossible to determine what he gathered directly from the writings of Tovar and what he may have obtained through other and probably posterior sources. At all events the Historia de la Nueva Galicia should never be neglected by students of the Pueblo Indians.

We now come to the two chief chroniclers of Coronado's time—both participants in his undertakings and therefore eye-witnesses: Pedro de Castañeda de Naxera and Juan Jaramillo. The fact that they were eye-witnesses establishes their high rank as authorities, but there is a difference between the two in that Castañeda was a common soldier, whereas Jaramillo (a former companion and, to ap. 8 certain extent, a friend of Cortés) was an officer. This fact alone establishes a difference in the opportunities for knowing and in the standpoint of judging what was seen, aside from the difference arising out of the character, facilities, and tendencies of the two individuals. Castañeda is much more detailed in his narration than Jaramillo. Discontent with the management and the final outcome of the enterprise is apparent in the tone of his writings, and while this may not have influenced very materially his description of the country and its people, they render more or less suspicious his statements in regard to the dealings with the aborigines. Both Castañeda and Jaramillo wrote a long time after the events had occurred, and probably from memory, hence the comparative accuracy of their descriptions is indeed remarkable. But that accuracy, however commendable, is relative rather than absolute, as both were liable to err, owing to the lapse of time and consequent failure to remember facts and events, and, especially with Castañeda, the influence of personal prejudice growing stronger with age. Jaramillo had less occasion to fall into error resulting from such weakness, but he is much less detailed than Castañeda. We might compare the two narrations by stating that that of Jaramillo embodies the reminiscences of one who stood officially on a higher plane and viewed his subject from a more general standpoint, whereas Castañeda saw more of the inferior details but was more susceptible of confounding, hence to misstate, the mass of data which his memory retained. Both reports will always remain the chief sources on the subject of which they treat, subject of course to close comparison and checking with correlated sources, archaeological, ethnological, and geographical investigation, and Indian tradition.

Before proceeding further in the discussion of the documents it must be stated that all references to distances in leagues must be taken with many allowances. According to Las Casas there were in use among the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, two kinds of leagues: the maritime league (legua maritima) and the terrestrial league (legua terrestre). The former, established by Alfonso XI in the twelfth century, consisted of four miles (millas) of four thousand paces, each pace being equal to three Castilian feet. The lengthp. 9 of the Castilian foot at that time cannot be established with absolute minuteness. The terrestrial league consisted of three thousand paces each, so that while it contained nine thousand Castilian feet, the maritime league was composed of twelve thousand. The latter was used for distances at sea and occasionally also for distances on land, therefore where an indication of the league employed is not positively given, a computation of distances with even approximate accuracy is of course impossible.

The result of Coronado's failure was so discouraging, and the reports on the country had been so unfavorable that for nearly forty years no further attempt was made to reach the North from New Spain. In fact Coronado and his achievements had become practically forgotten, and only when the southern part of the present state of Chihuahua in Mexico became the object of Spanish enterprise for mining purposes was attention again drawn to New Mexico, when the Church opened the way thither from the direction of the Atlantic slope. This naturally led the explorers first to the Rio Grande Pueblos.

The brief report of the eight companions of Francisco Sanchez Chamuscado who in 1580 accompanied the Franciscan missionaries as far as Bernalillo, the site of which was then occupied by Tigua villages, and who went thence as far as Zuñi, is important, although it presents merely the sketch of a rather hasty reconnoissance. Following, as the Spaniards did, the course of the Rio Grande from the south, they fixed, at least approximately, the limit of the Pueblo region in that direction. Some of the names of Pueblos preserved in the document are valuable in so far as they inform us of the designations of villages in a language that was not the idiom of their inhabitants. Chamuscado having died on the return journey, the document is not signed by him, but by his men. The document had been lost sight of until I called attention to it nearly thirty years ago, the subsequent exploration by Antonio de Espejo having monopolized the attention of those interested in the early exploration of New Mexico.

The report of Antonio de Espejo on his long and thorough reconnoissance in 1582-1583 attracted so much attention that for a time and in some circles his expedition was looked upon as resultingp. 10 in the original discovery of New Mexico. This name was also given by Espejo to the country, and it thereafter remained. While the documents relating to Coronado slumbered unnoticed and almost forgotten, the report of Espejo was published within less than three years after it had been written. It must be stated here that there are two manuscripts of the report of Espejo, one dated 1583 and bearing his autograph signature and official (notarial) certificates, the other in 1584 which is a distorted copy of the original and with so many errors in names and descriptions that, as the late Woodbury Lowery very justly observed, it is little else than spurious. I had already called attention to the unreliability of the latter version, and yet it is the one that alone was consulted for more than three centuries because it had become accessible through publication in the Voiages of Hakluyt, together with an English translation even more faulty, if possible, than its Spanish original. The