There were twelve Indian villages on the banks of the Rio Grande within a distance of some fifteen miles or so. The Rio Grande was described by the Spanish, at that time, as large and mighty in a spacious valley two leagues wide. Although the valley was broad and fertile, the Spanish description was certainly an over-estimation. Two leagues equalled five or six miles. They also said that the river froze so hard that laden animals and carts could cross over it. Tiguex was the winter camp of the entire Spanish expedition. It was here that Coronado and his band of weary and disappointed explorers spent that miserable and never-to-be-forgotten winter of 1540-1541. Glowing accounts of how Indians lived were told by the romantic Spanish chroniclers. Still, they found only a poor simple people living by the soil and a little hunting—but no gold. Tiguex was not the only province along the river. There were others whose people had the same ways and peculiar customs as the people at the Tiguex villages. One of these provinces was that of Quirex. It has been determined that this was the district where the Keres language is spoken today by five very primitive Indian Pueblos. They are Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ana and Sia. Moved by an indomitable spirit and determination, a small band of soldiers pushed far north from Tiguex, past the Keres-speaking villages where another province was discovered on the upper Rio Grande. It was reported that two very fine villages were to be seen. According to some students these were in the vicinity of the present Tewa-speaking village of San Juan. The entire Indian population moved out at the sight of the Spanish. They retreated into the mountains where they said they had four very strong villages in a rough country where it was impossible for the Spanish to follow on horseback. Had they followed these people they would, no doubt, have found almost inaccessible Indian trails. Instead, they returned to Tiguex and left this northern province in peace. Little did the Spanish realize what extensive villages they might have seen in the rough mountains mentioned by the Indians.