.
They were martyrs of their faith, hence glories of their order, and the
Franciscan author could not refrain from commemorating their deeds and
their faith. The spurious text was not taken from Mendoza, but
manifestly was copied from the transcript by a bungling scribe
imperfectly acquainted with the Spanish tongue.

The value of Espejo's narration is undoubtedly great. The author was a
close practical observer and a sincere reporter. The more is it
surprising that his statements in regard to the population of the
Pueblos are so manifestly exaggerated; yet, as I have elsewhere stated,
this may be explained. A tendency to enhance somewhat the importance of
discoveries is inherent in almost every discoverer, but in the case of
Espejo he was exposed to another danger. As he proceeded from village to
village the natives gathered at every point from other places out of
curiosity, fear, or perhaps with hostile intent, so that the number of
the people which the explorer met was each time much larger than the
actual number of inhabitants. On the question of population Espejo could
have no knowledge, since he had no means of communicating with the
people by speech. Furthermore, it is well known that a crowd always
appears more numerous than it would prove to be after an actual count;
besides, even if he could have counted the Indians present, he would
have fallen into the error of recording the same individual several
times.

During the comparatively short time which Espejo had to explore the
country as far as the Hopi or Moqui, he collected interesting
ethnological data. Customs that appeared new as late as the second half
of the last century were noted by him; and while his nomenclature of the
Pueblos agrees in many points with that of the Coronado expedition,
terms were added that have since been definitely adopted. Espejo's
return to Mexico was to be followed by a definite occupancy of the Rio
Grande country, but his untimely death prevented it, and the subsequent
plan of colonization, framed and proposed by Juan Bautista de Lomas
Colmenares, led to no practical results, as likewise did the ill-fated
expedition of Humana, Bonilla, and Leyva, the disastrous end of which in
the plains became known only through a few vestiges of information and
by hearsay.

Seven years after Espejo's journey, Gaspar Castano de Sosa penetrated
to the Rio Grande near the present village of Santo Domingo. The report
thereon is explicit and so