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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt:... of the exhausted men dragged themselves to the shore. There they fell into the hands of savages, who prepared fires to burn them. The poor Spaniards fought bravely. But there were hosts of Indians; and only four of Narvaez's men escaped to tell the story of this sad voyage. These four, for some reason, were spared by the savages, but were carried off as prisoners. A hard, hard life they had of it, for their captors stoned them, and half starved them, and often marched them far beyond their strength. Cortez had already tried at four different times to reach the Pacific coast, but had failed. As De Vaca, one of the captives, marched westward with his captors day after day, it was a comfort to him to know that he was exploring a country into which Spaniards had not yet come. The savages and their prisoners pushed on till they came to the Rio Grande River, and from there they marched overland as far as the Gulf of California. This would indeed be something to tell, for no one had dreamed that the continent was so wide. Happy men, then, were these four, when at last they escaped from their captors and made their way to a city in Mexico, where a Spanish governor lived. Now when De Vaca and his companions came to the city, they were ragged and worn and exhausted. But they were heroes; they had visited lands never before dreamed of, and the people gathered around them to hear their wonderful stories. The stories they told of the Seven Cities of Cibola pleased the people most. "Seven Cities of Cibola! Seven Cities of Cibola!" Everybody said these words over and over, and talked about the cities, and dreamed about them. "I have not really seen them," De Vaca admitted; "but I believe that the Seven Cities do exist. We heard...