There had been few attractions to draw these adventurers away from Mexico, the metropolis of the mainland, for some time previous to 1539. Peru still offered excitement for those who had nothing to gain or lose, but the purely personal struggle going on there between Pizarro and Almagro could not arouse the energies of those who were in search of glory as well as of employment. A considerable part of the rabble which followed Nuño de Guzman during the conquest of New Galicia went to Peru after their chief had been superseded by the Licentiate de la Torre, so that one town is said to have disappeared entirely from this cause; but among these there were few men of good birth and spirit. Mendoza had been able, at first, to accommodate and employ those who accompanied him from Spain, like Vazquez Coronado, “being chiefly young gentlemen.” But every vessel coming from home brought some companion or friend of those who were already in New Spain, and after Cabeza de Vaca carried the reports of his discoveries to the Spanish court, an increasing number came each season to join the already burdensome body of useless members of the viceregal household. The viceroy recognized the necessity of relieving the community of this burden very soon after he had established himself in Mexico, and he was continually on the watch for some suitable means of freeing himself from these guests. By 1539 the problem of looking after these young gentlemen—whose number is determined quite accurately by the two hundred and fifty or three hundred “gentlemen on horseback” who left New Spain with Coronado in the [p377] spring of 1540—had become a serious one to the viceroy. The most desirable employment for all this idle energy would be, of course, the exploration and conquest of new country, or the opening of the border territory for permanent settlement. But no mere work for work’s sake, no wild-goose chase, would do. These young gentlemen had many friends near to Charles V, who would have resented any abuse of privilege or of confidence. A suitable expedition could be undertaken only at considerable expense, and unless the cost could all be made good to the accountants in Spain, complaints were sure to be preferred against even the best of viceroys. So Mendoza entertained his guests as best he could, while they loafed about his court or visited his stock farms, and he anxiously watched the reports which came from the officials of the northwestern province of New Galicia and from the priests who were wandering and working among the outlying Indian tribes. When, late in the summer of 1539, Friar Marcos returned from the north, bringing the assurance that Cibola was a desirable field for conquest, the viceroy quickly improved the opportunity for which he had been waiting. Within a month and a half Mendoza had begun to organize the force which was to conquer this new country.