The Royal Council of the Indies decreed that a new attempt to explore the north should be made both by sea and by land (1540). Hernando de Alarcón was given command of two vessels, and he was ordered to keep near the coast so as to be able easily to coöperate with the land force. As a matter of fact the two divisions never did meet or communicate. Don Francisco Vásquez Coronado was chosen captain-general of the overland expedition to the north. He was accompanied by a gallant troop of four hundred Spaniards and eight hundred Indians. It must have been a brilliant spectacle when this cavalcade, with its gaily caparisoned horses, its mule train, and its herds of cattle and sheep for food supply, finally set forth from Compostela on Shrove Tuesday, February 23, 1540. The chief of the religious was Fray Juan de Padilla, once a soldier but now a Franciscan, destined to become the proto-martyr of the North. Among others who bore distinguished names three are of especial interest to us, since they have left tangible evidence of their exploits. The standard-bearer of the army, Don Pedro de Tobar, discovered the Tusayán settlements (Hopi) and heard “of a giant People and a mighty river.” Don García López de Cárdenas first saw the great gorge known to-day as the “Grand Cañon” of the Colorado. Hernando de Alvarado, first of white men, saw Ácoma and talked with its inhabitants. While encamped at Zuñi the white strangers were naturally objects of the utmost curiosity to the native peoples. Among others who came to observe them were some from Cicuyé (Pecos) seventy leagues eastward. They were led by their cacique. He was handsome and well formed, and because of his great mustaches the Spaniards called him “Bigotes.” On the body of one of his Indians was painted a picture of a humpbacked cow (the buffalo).[41] Coronado was told that great herds of these animals roamed the plains. To test the story Coronado sent Alvarado and twenty other Spaniards with the Indians charged to report again at Zuñi in eighty days. For five days they marched eastward. They then “arrived at a town called Ácuco, a very strange place built upon a solid rock, the inhabitants of which were great brigands and much dreaded by all the province.”