very rich and populous and had great walled cities, and that the lords of the cities were called kings, and that the people were very shrewd and use the Mexican language.” But the witness to whose deposition we are most indebted was Andrés Garcia. This man declared that he had a son-in-law who was a barber, who had shaved the friar after he came back from the new country. The son-in-law had told the witness that the friar, while being [p366] shaved, had talked about the country which he had discovered beyond the mountains. “After crossing the mountains, the friar said there was a river, and that many settlements were there, in cities and towns, and that the cities were surrounded by walls, with their gates guarded, and were very wealthy, having silversmiths, and that the women wore strings of gold beads and the men girdles of gold and white woolen dresses; and that they had sheep and cows and partridges and slaughterhouses and iron forges.”[36] Friar Marcos undoubtedly never willfully told an untruth about the country of Cibola, even in a barber’s chair. But there seems to be little chance for doubting that the reports which he brought to New Spain were the cause of much talk as well as many sermons, which gave rise to a considerable amount of excitement among the settlers, whose old-world notions had been upset by the reputed glory of the Montezumas and the wealth of the Incas. Very many, though perhaps not all, of the colonists were stirred with an eager desire to participate in the rich harvest awaiting the conquerors of these new [p367] lands. Friar Marcos was not a liar, but it is impossible to ignore the charges against him quite as easily as Mr Bandelier has done.