The first expedition toward the east was sent out August 29 in charge of Don Hernando de Alvarado. Passing the rock of Acuco or Acoma—always a source of admiration—Alvarado reached the village and river of Tiguex—the Rio Grande—on September 7. Some time was spent in [p391] visiting the villages situated along the stream. The headquarters of the party were at Tiguex, at or near the site of the present town of Bernalillo, and here a list was drawn up and sent to the general giving the names of eighty villages of which he had learned from the natives of this place. At the same time Alvarado reported that these villages were the best that had yet been found, and advised that the winter quarters for the whole force should be established in this district. He then proceeded to Cicuye or Pecos, the most eastern of the walled villages, and from there crossed the mountains to the buffalo plains. Finding a stream which flowed toward the southeast—the Canadian river, perhaps—he followed its course for a hundred leagues or more. Many of the “humpback oxen” were seen, of which some of the men may have remembered Cabeza de Vaca’s description. On his return, Alvarado found the army-master, Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, at Tiguex, arranging winter quarters sufficient to accommodate the whole force in this region.[71] Coronado, who had made a trip to examine the villages farther south, along the Rio Grande, soon joined his lieutenants, leaving only a small force at Cibola to maintain the post. The whole of the advance party was now in Tiguex, and orders had been left at Cibola for the main body to proceed to the eastern settlements so soon as they should arrive from Culiacan and Corazones. THE MARCH OF THE ARMY FROM CULIACAN TO TIGUEX