Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/88

THE QUERECHOS OR CX3MANCHES. 77 They retired toward the town, arid if they had not had Indian allies' from the country of Hearts, it would have gone worse with them. They got back to town, leaving seventeen soldiers dead from poison. They would die in aigony from only a small wound, the bodies breaWng out with an insupportable pestilen- tial stink." "After ten days more they came to some settle- ments of people who lived like Arabs £i,nd who are called Querechos in that region. They had seen the cows for two days. These folks live in tents made of the tanned skins of the cows. They travel around ■ near the cows, killing them for food. They did noth- ing unusual when they saw our army, except to come out of the tents to look at us, after which they came to talk to the advance guard and asked who we were. The general talked v?ith them, but they had already talked with the Turk, who was with the advance guard;' they agreed with what he had said. That they were intelligent is evident from the fact that although they conversed by means of signs they made themselves understood so well that there was no need of an interpreter. They' said that there was a very large river over toward where the sun came from, and that one could go along this river through an inhabited region for ninety days without a break from "settlement to settlement. They said that the first of these settlements Was called Haxa, and that .. the river was more than a league wide and that there were many canoes upon it. These folks started off from here next day with a lot of dogs which dragged their possessions. For two days, during which th