The story of this Indian did not convince the friar that what he heard about the grandeur of these seven cities was all true, and he decided not to believe anything until he had seen it for himself, or had at least received additional proof. The friar did not start immediately for the seven cities, as the negro had advised him to do, but waited until he could see the Indians who had been summoned from the seacoast. These told him about pearls, which were found near their homes. Some “painted” Indians, living to the eastward, having their faces, chests, and arms tattooed or decorated with pigments, who were perhaps the Pima or Sobaipuri Indians, also visited him while he was staying at Vacapa and gave him an extended account of the seven cities, very similar to that of the Indian sent by Estevan. [p357] [Illustration: XLI. Map of the World by Ptolemy, 1548] Friar Marcos started on the second day following Pascua Florida, or Easter, which came on April 6, 1539. He expected to find Estevan waiting at the village where he had first heard about the cities. A second cross, as big as the first, had been received from the negro, and the messengers who brought this gave a fuller and much more specific account of the cities, agreeing in every respect with what had previously been related. When the friar reached the village where the negro had obtained the first information about the cities, he secured many new details. He was told that it was thirty days’ journey from this village to the city of Cibola, which was the first of the seven. Not one person alone, but many, described the houses very particularly and showed him the way in which they were built, just as the messengers had done. Besides these seven cities, he learned that there were other kingdoms, called Marata, Acus, and Totonteac. The linguistic students, and especially Mr Frank Hamilton Cushing, have identified the first of these with Matyata or Makyata, a cluster of pueblos about the salt lakes southeast of Zuñi, which were in ruins when Alvarado saw them in 1540, although they appeared to have been despoiled not very long before. Acus is the Acoma pueblo and Totonteac was in all probability the province of Tusayan, northwestward from Zuñi. The friar asked these people why they went so far away from their homes, and was told that they went to get turquoises and cow skins, besides other valuable things, of all of which he saw a considerable store in the village.