Fired by the high-coloured reports brought back by Father Marco, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, already famed as a great soldier and explorer, determined himself to start for Cevola. His expedition was composed of the flower of the Spanish chivalry, and as he marched northward through Sonora by land, Fernando Alarcon, with two ships, was sent up the coast to render assistance should occasion require. It was not known at that time (1540) that Lower California was united to the mainland, so that Alarcon soon found his progress stopped at the head of the Gulf of California. He ascended the Rio Colorado for eighty-five leagues, and, not encountering Coronado returned by water to New Mexico.

Soon after Coronado had started, one Melchior Diaz set out after him, with twenty-five men. He, however, by directing his course to the westward, also discovered the Colorado, and returned to Mexico by sea, bringing back the first announcement that Lower California was not an island. He described the Indians along the Rio Colorado as being a very tall race, almost naked -- the men carrying banners, and bows and arrows, the women wearing feathers and an apron of deerskin; their noses were pierced; ornaments hung from their ears; and the warriors smeared themselves with bright-coloured paint.

Nearly at the same time Coronado, having penetrated with his party to Zuni, despatched one of his officers, Garci Lopez de Cardenas, with a detachment of men to the Moqui villages; and this party made a third discovery of the Rio Colorado, many hundred miles above its mouth. After travelling for twenty days through a broken volcanic country, where they experienced great scarcity of water, they suddenly came upon a deep cleft in the earth's surface which barred all further progress. Lopez describes it as being deeper than the side of the highest mountain, while the surging torrent below seemed not more than a fathom wide. Two men tried to descend; but after with difficulty climbing down a third of the way, they were stopped by a rock, which, although from above it did not appear larger than a man, was, in reality, higher than the tower of the cathedral at Seville. "In no other part of the continent had they seen so deep a gulf hollowed out by a river for its course." Thus the discovery of the Great Canon of the Colorado dates back to the year 1540.

Coronado's trip to Cevola does not seem to have been quite as prosperous at first as that of Father Marco. He met with great hardships, and lost many of his horses and men before reaching the Rio Grila, and, after resting there two days, seems to have had great difficulty in making his way through the Mo-gollon Mountains. "But," he continues, "after we had passed thirty leagues of the most wicked way we found fresh rivers and grass, like that of Castile, and many nut-trees (Pinon pines), whose leaf differs from those of Spain; and there was flax, but chiefly near the banks of a certain river, which therefore we called El Rio del Lino" (Colorado Chiquito). Here he was met by some people of Cevola, who first appeared friendly, but afterwards attacked his army very valiantly.

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adapted from A. W. Bell
"On the Native Races of New Mexico"
1869 (Journal of the Ethnological Society of London)