History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

12
DISCOVERIES OF THE SPANIARDS.
from Santa Fe to Monterey. First, Escalante entertained
a theory that a better route to the Pacific
could be found northward than toward the south.
Then there was always a fascination attending this
region, with its great and perpetual Northern Mystery;
perhaps the Arctic Ocean came down hereabout,
or at least an arm of the Anian Strait might be
found; nor were forgotten the rivers spoken of by
different persons on different occasions as flowing
hence into the Pacific. And last of all it may be
that the rumor of Pueblo villages in this quarter carried
the explorers further north than otherwise they
would have gone.
However this may have been, they were now of
opinion that they had penetrated far enough in a
northerly direction, and from this point must take a
southerly course. There were here no town-builders
like the Moquis and Zuhis, as the priests had been
led to suppose, but there were wild Indians, and the
first they had seen in this vicinity. At first these
savages manifested fear, but when assured that the
strangers had not come to harm them, and were in no
way leagued with the dreaded Comanches, they welcomed
them kindly and gave them food. They were
simple-minded and inoffensive, these native Yutas,
very ready to guide the travellers whithersoever they
would go; but they begged them to return and establish
a mission in their midst; in token of which, and
of their desire to adopt the Christian faith, they gave
the priests a kind of hieroglyphic painting on deer-
10 The Spaniards asked from them some token to show that they wished
them to return, and the day after they brought them one; 'pero al traer la
seua vio un compafiero, que no sabia el orden dado, a las figuras de ella, y
mostrandole la eruz del rosario, les di6 a entender, cpue la pintasen sobre una
ile las figuras, y entonces la volvieron a llevar, y sobre cada una pintaron
una cruz pequefia ; lo demas quedo como antes y nos la dieron diciendo que
la figura (pie por uno y otro lado tenia mas almagre, 6 como ellos decian,
San- re, i epresentaba al capitan mayor, porque en las batallas con los cumancli
li ilia recibido mas heridas: las otras dos que no estaban tan ensangrentadas,
a los otros dos capitanes inferiores al primero, y la que no tenia sangre
ninguna, a uno que no era capitan de guerra, pero era de autoridad entre