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* Hakluyt gives "25th," but it is a misprint, as this Thursday in 1540 was the 26th. Gradually, intercourse increased, and presents of trinkets seemed to incline all the natives in Alarcon's favour. At length he discovered that they reverenced the sun, and without compunction he proclaimed that he came from that orb. This deception served him well.
Lope de Vega, it may be added, was really the author of a sequel to 'la Verdad sospechosa', which Corneille adapted also as a sequel to his 'Menteur', but it was even poorer than such sequels usually are. The 'Lying Lover' in Alarcon's play is a Don Garcia fresh from his studies in Salamanca, and Steele's Latine first appears there as a Tristan, the gracioso of old Spanish comedy.
He steadfastly refused even to read the Russian masters, to his immense loss, as I tried to persuade him, and even among the modern Spaniards, for whom he might have had a sort of personal kindness from his love of Cervantes, he chose one for his praise the least worthy, of it, and bore me down with his heavier metal in argument when I opposed to Alarcon's factitiousness the delightful genuineness of Valdes.
These had been warlike, and it was proposed to kill all of Alarcon's party to prevent the others from gaining a knowledge of this country. But the old man declared Alarcon to be the son of the sun and took his part. Finally it was decided to ask him whether he were a Christian or the son of the sun.
This coincides very well with Alarcon's estimate of eighty-five leagues, for Diaz did not follow the windings of the stream as Alarcon was forced to do with his boats. At the place down the river, Diaz found a tree bearing an inscription: "Alarcon reached this point; there are letters at the foot of this tree."
Alarcon does not, as before noted, mention burying letters, and these were found at the foot of a tree, so that Diaz evidently failed to reach the cross erected at Alarcon's highest point. * Relacion del Suceso. Alarcon must have reached his highest point about October 5th or 6th, and the ships on the return about the 10th. Diaz probably arrived at the river about November 1st.
At this, Alarcon's farthest point, he caused a very high cross to be erected, on which words were carved to the effect that he had reached the place, so that if Coronado's men chanced to come that way they might see it. Nothing is said about burying letters, yet Diaz later mentions finding letters buried at the foot of a tree, apparently nearer the sea.
But it was an unknown quantity at the time of Alarcon's visit, so far as white men were concerned. Farther up, Alarcon met with another man who understood his interpreter, and this man said he had been to Cibola, or Cevola,* as Alarcon writes it, and that it was a month's journey, "by a path that went along that river."
Henceforth no service was too great for the natives to perform for these sacred beings. Everything was placed at their disposal. Alarcon's word was their law. They relieved the men entirely of the wearisome task of towing the boats, striving with each other for the privilege.
Read the accounts of Powell's trips down its dangerous course; of Alarcon's struggles to ascend its headlong tides; of Ives's and Wheeler's attempts to explore a portion of it; of Cardenas's efforts even to reach its waters from one of its banks, and of the ruthless manner in which it has destroyed the lives of those unfortunate enough to come within its reach.
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