Twenty leagues to the east of this rock we found a river which runs north and south,[348] well settled; there are in all, small and large, 70 villages near it, a few more or less, the same sort as those at Cibola, except that they are almost all of well-made mud walls. The food is neither more nor less. They raise cotton—I mean those who live near the river—the others not. There is much corn here. These people do not have markets. They are settled for 50 leagues along this river, north and south, and some villages are 15 or 20 leagues distant, in one direction and the other. This river rises where these settlements end at the north, on the slope of the mountains there, where there is a larger village different from the others, called Yuraba.[349] It is settled in this fashion: It has 18 divisions; each one has a situation as if for two ground plots;[350] the houses are very close together, and have five or six stories, three of them with mud walls and two or three with thin wooden walls, which become smaller as they go up, and each one has its little balcony outside of the mud walls, one above the other, all around, of wood. In this village, as it is in the mountains, they do not raise cotton nor breed fowls; they wear the skins of deer and cows entirely. It is the most populous village of all that country; we estimated there were 15,000 souls in it. There is one of the other kind of villages larger than all the rest, and very strong, which is called Cicuique.[351] It has four and five stories, has eight large courtyards, each one with its balcony, and there are fine houses in it. They do not raise cotton nor keep fowls, because it is 15 leagues away from the river to the east, toward the plains where the cows are. After Alvarado had sent an account of this [p576] river to Francisco Vazquez, he proceeded forward to these plains, and at the borders of these he found a little river which flows to the southwest, and after four days’ march he found the cows, which are the most monstrous thing in the way of animals which has ever been seen or read about. He followed this river for 100 leagues, finding more cows every day. We provided ourselves with some of these, although at first, until we had had experience, at the risk of the horses. There is such a quantity of them that I do not know what to compare them with, except with the fish in the sea, because on this journey, as also on that which the whole army afterward made when it was going to Quivira, there were so many that many times when we started to pass through the midst of them and wanted to go through to the other side of them, we were not able to, because the country was covered with them. The flesh of these is as good as that of Castile, and some said it was even better.