He continued his journey five days, always finding inhabited places, great hospitality, and many "turquoises" and ox-hides. He then understood that after two days' journey he would find a desert where there was no food. Before he reached this desert, he arrived at a very pleasant town, by reason of great stores of water conveyed thither to water the same. Here he met with many people, both men and women, clothed in cotton, and some covered with ox-hides, "which generally they take for better apparel than that of cotton". "All the people of this village," he states, "go in caconados -- that is to say, with turquoises hanging at their nostril and ears, which turquoises they call cacona".

The "lord of this village "and others visited him "apparelled in cotton," "in caconados," and each with a collar of turquoises about his neck. They gave him conies, quails, maize, and nuts of pine trees, and offered turquoises, dressed ox-hides, and fair vessels to drink in, which he declined. They informed him that in Totonteac was a great quantity of woollen cloth, such as he himself wore, made from the fleeces of wild beasts. These beasts they told him were about the same size as two spaniels which Stephen carried with him.

The next day he entered the desert; and when he was to dine, he found bowers made and victuals in abundance by a river-side. Thus the Indians provided for him during four days that the "wilderness" continued. He then entered a valley, very well inhabited with people, who were dressed also in cotton robes, with turquoises pendent from their ears and nostrils, and numerous strings of the same encircling their necks.

Through this valley, which was inhabited by a "goodly people," he travelled five days' journey" --. The country was "well watered and like a garden," "abounding in victuals" "sufficient to feed about three thousand horsemen." The boroughs and towns were from a quarter to half a league long. Here he found a man born in Cevola (Zuni), having escaped from the governor or lieutenant of the same; "for the lord of the seven cities liveth and abideth in one of these towns called Ahacus [Acoma], and in the rest he appointeth lieutenants under him." "This townsman of Cevola is a white man", of good complexion, somewhat well in years, and of far greater capacity than the inhabitants of this valley, or those left behind."

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