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Show 176 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN HISTORY even the conqueror of Mexico had ever commanded so brilliant a company. The distance to Culiacan, along the coast was eighty leagues, and notwithstanding the desire on the THE DEPARTURE OF part of officer and man to reach the point of THE EXPEDITION destination at the earliest opportunity the march was necessarily slow. Several days of delay were made necessary on account of the fording of the Centizpac river. Mota Padilla, who used material of great value in his he proceeded to Jacona, where he wrote a letter to the king, April 17, 1540. March 20, Mendoza received the report from Melchior Diaz, who had spent the preceding winter in the country through which Friar Marcos had traveled trying to verify the friar’s report. Diaz, and Salvidar, his lieutenant, on their return from the north, met the army at Chiametla, as it was about to resume its march, after a few days’ delay. Diaz stopped at Chiametla, while Salvidar carried the report to the viceroy, and he must have traveled very rapidly to deliver his packets on March 20, when Mendoza had left Colima although he probably had not arrived at Jacona. Everything points to the very slow progress of the force, hampered by the long baggage and provision trains, Castafieda says that they reached Culiacan Just before Easter, March 28, less than thirty-five days after February 23. Here Coronado stopped for as ae a fortnight’s entertainment and rest, according to was present. Mota Padilla says that the army stayed 18 agrees with Castafieda’s statement that the main body here a started a fortnight later than their general. ares, ent = arrange an itinerary of the expedition is perplexing, and tally n made easier by modern students. Professor Haynes, in his Early mi 481, eh of Zuni v os os akin sare ae ’ a ’s Narrative and Critical History, vol. ii, er’s Statement on page 26 of his Documentary History € start from Compostella was made ‘‘in the last days of run the Ist of February. Historia de la Nueva Galicia, says that the army marched from Compostella ‘el 10 de Febrero del afio de 1540.’ . . Mendoza, who had spent the New Year’s season at Pasquaro, the seat of the bishopric of Michoacan, did not hasten his journey across the country, and we know only that the whole force had assembled before he arrived at Compostella. At least a fortnight would have been necessary for completing the organization of the force, and for collecting and arranging all the supplies. ’’ Another combination of dates makes it hard to decide how rapidly the army marched. Mendoza was at Compostella February 26. He presumably started on his return to Mexico very soon after that date. He went down the coast to Colima, where he was detained by an attack of fever for Some days. Thence JZ FO soovsszgy, de carnes tollendas,’’ the carnival preceding Shrove-tide, which, in 1540, fell on February 10, Easter being March 28. Mr. Winship has gone into this discrepancy with his usual analytical skill and in a note, at page 382 of his Coronado Expedition, says: ‘‘This march from Compostella to Culiacan according to a letter which Coronado wrote from Granada — Zufii — on August 3, occupied eighty days. The same letter gives April 22 as the date when Coronado left Culiacan, after stopping for several days in that town, and this date is corroborated by another account, the Traslado de las Nuevas. April 22 is only sixty days after February 23, the date of the departure, which is fixed almost beyond question by the legal formalities of the Testimonio of February 21-26. We have only Ramusio’s Italian text of Coronado’s letter of August 3, so that it is easy to suspect that a slip on the part of the translator causes the trouble. But to complicate matters, eighty days previous to April 22 is about |