therefore not to be relied upon on these points. Mota-Padllla calls Cicuyé "Coquite." Herrera copies Jaramillo. Only Casteñeda is clear and consistent, and his statements agree perfectly with the country and with the relics left by its former inhabitants.
Coronado, with an energy to which due recognition cannot be refused, notwithstanding the outrages that attended his proceedings at Bernalillo, thus in a short time brought Central New Mexico within the compass of his knowledge, and obtained the first correct information of the Village Indians of six linguistic stocks; but his attention was still chiefly directed toward the east, of the great wealth of which "the Turk" continued to talk to him and the Spaniards. What he had so far seen of New Mexico did not appear sufficiently favorable for him to be satisfied to devote himself to its settlement. The Valley of the Rio Grande is, indeed, not very inviting in winter, especially in so severe a winter as that of 1540-41 seems to have been. The clearer the sunshine and the deeper the blue of the arch of the sky, the more dreary in their barrenness are the dunes that border alternately both sides of the river, and the more welcome is the sight of the black mesas and of the peaks of volcanic stone which in groups and singly interrupt the monotonous profile. Still more gloomy is the waterless plateau which extends from the eastern edge of the river valley to the foot of the Sierra de Sandia, and farther south to the Sierra de Manzano and the Puerto de Abóa—gray flat, twenty miles wide and fifty miles long from north to south, without brook, spring, or pond. The Sandia Mountain towers over it like a gigantic wall, with awful clefts
