THE REAL SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA. The first city of Cibola was an Indian pueblo of about two hundred flat-roofed houses, built of stone and sun-dried clay. The houses were entered by climbing ladders to the top and then passing down into the rooms as we enter ships through hatches. The people wore only such clothes as could be woven from the coarse fiber of native plants, or patched together from the tanned skins of the cat or the deer. They cultivated certain plants for food, but only small and poor varieties of corn, beans, and melons. They had some skill in making small things for house and personal decoration, mainly in the form of pottery and simple ornaments of green stone. The kingdom of rich cities dwindled to a small province of poor villages inhabited by an unwarlike people. We know now that Coronado had found the Zuni pueblos in the western part of New Mexico. The conquest of these was a wofully small thing for so grand and costly an expedition. No gold or silver or precious jewels had been found. [Illustration: CANYON OF THE COLORADO] THE CANYON OF THE COLORADO. Yet the wonders of the natural world about them astonished and interested the Spaniards. Some of their number found the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River and vividly described it to their comrades. As they looked into its depths it seemed as if the water was six feet across, although in reality it was many hundred feet wide. Some tried without success to descend the steep cliff to the stream below or to discover a means of crossing to the opposite side. Those who staid above estimated that some huge rocks on the side of the cliff were about as tall as a man, but those who went down as far as they could swore that when they reached these rocks they found them bigger than the great tower of Seville, which is two hundred and seventy-five feet high. CORONADO IN NEW MEXICO. Coronado marched from the Cities of Cibola eastward to the valley of the Rio Grande River, and settled for the winter in an Indian village a short distance south of the present city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Spaniards drove the natives out, only allowing them to take the clothes they wore.