ting in the original
discovery of New Mexico. This name was also given by Espejo to the
country, and it thereafter remained. While the documents relating to
Coronado slumbered unnoticed and almost forgotten, the report of Espejo
was published within less than three years after it had been written. It
must be stated here that there are two manuscripts of the report of
Espejo, one dated 1583 and bearing his autograph signature and official
(notarial) certificates, the other in 1584 which is a distorted copy of
the original and with so many errors in names and descriptions that, as
the late Woodbury Lowery very justly observed, it is little else than
spurious. I had already called attention to the unreliability of the
latter version, and yet it is the one that alone was consulted for more
than three centuries because it had become accessible through
publication in the Voiages of Hakluyt, together with an English
translation even more faulty, if possible, than its Spanish original.
The authentic document, with several others relating to Espejo's brief
career, was not published in full until 1871, and even then attracted
little attention because it was not translated and because the
_Coleccion de Documentos del Archivo de Indias_ is not accessible to
every one. But the publication of 1871 was by no means the first printed
version of Espejo's relations. Even prior to 1586 a somewhat condensed
narration of his exploration had been published, being embodied in the
_History of China_ by Father Gonzalez Mendoza. This account is based on
the authentic report in some of the various editions, on the spurious
document in others. The book of Father Mendoza was soon translated into
French. It is not surprising that Espejo's narrative should appear first
in print in a work on the Chinese Empire by a Franciscan missionary.
That ecclesiastic was impressed by some of Espejo's observations on
Pueblo customs which he thought resembled those of the Chinese. The
discoveries of Espejo were then the most recent ones that had been made
by Spaniards, and as New Mexico was fancied to lie nearer the Pacific
than it really does, and facing the eastern coast of China, a lurking
desire to find a possible connection between the inhabitants of both
continents on that side is readily explicable. But Father Mendoza had
still another motive. The three monks which Chamuscado had left in New
Mexico had sacrificed their lives in an attempt to convert the natives