Finally, having lost many of their horses, being
harassed by the Indians, and suffering from want of provisions, the
way-worn army reached known soil in the valley of Culiacan. Here all
discipline was at an end, and the disorganized army straggled for leagues
down the valley, all Coronado's entreaties failing to restore any order to
the ranks.
At length the sorely disappointed commander presented himself before the
viceroy Mendoza, with scarcely a hundred ragged followers who alone
remained with him of the splendid cavalcade with which he had set out.
Thus ends the story of the last of the conquistadores, who had found only
villages of barbarians and tribes of half-naked savages, and returned
empty-handed from his long chase after the Will-o' the-wisp of Quivira and
its fleeting treasures. Little did he dream that Quivira would yet become
the central region of one of the greatest civilized nations of the world,
and rich in productions beyond his most avaricious vision.
THE FAITHFUL MIRANDA AND THE LOVERS OF ARGENTINA.
The early history of America has few romantic tales of love and devotion,
but there is one woven in with the history of the settlement of Buenos
Ayres, the modern Argentina, which is told by all the historians of the
time, and which exists as the one striking love romance of the Spanish
conquest.
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