Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/124

COMANCHES 367 YEARS AGO. 113 er wrote to the king that he first came across a Quere- chos village. Therefore, let us locate it within a few miles of Roberts County, Texas. If you will look at a map of New Mexico and Texas you wUl find the Canadian river runs for over two hundred miles nearly due west, and is surely an ideal, natural high- way for an army, since they would be able to procure water for themselves and animals, and there are few obstructions. From this place till the northeastern part of Kansas was reached, the travelers met natives quite frequently. According to the authorities this tribe of Quere- chos was that afterwards known as Comanche, and from Coronado's account of them they were nomads of the highest order; for here is what the great Spaniard said: "They travel around with these cows, who do not plant, and who eat the raw flesh and drink the blood of the cows they kill, and they tpin the skin of the cows, with which all the people of this country dress themselves here. They have little field tents made of the hides of cows, tanned and greased and very well made, in which they live while they travel around nea.r the cows, moving with these. They have dogs which they loaA, which carry their tents and poles and belongings. Thosr> people have the best figare.s of any that I havp snen in the Indies. They could not give me any account of the country where the guides were taking mo " There is one query which flushps through the mind when thinking of the dwellers in Quivira wher first discovered: How, came it that although there were two natives of this province with the expedition.