If Coronado steadily followed the course of the Sonora, Suya should be looked for in the valley of Bacuachi. But if he followed the Bacuachi River, going therefore directly north, he would have approached the Cananía, and consequently the sources of the Rio Santa Cruz. The accounts on these points are unusually indefinite, the same writer often contradicting himself several times. I am inclined to the opinion that he followed the Rio Sonora all the time, and that San Hierónymo should therefore be sought near the ruins of Mututicâchi. Juan Jaramillo says that the Spaniards marched from “Sonora” for four days through an uninhabited region, and then came to a brook which he calls “Nexpa”; followed down this brook for two days to a chain of mountains, along which they continued for two days. This chain of mountains was pointed out to him as “Chichiltic-calli.” The itinerary of this writer, who marched with Coronado while Casteñeda probably followed the main body, deserves to be reproduced literally.
“After we had crossed these mountains, we came to a deep brook with steep banks, where we found water and grass for our horses. Leaving this brook, which is the other side of the Nexpa of which I have spoken, we took the direction toward the northeast (as it seemed to me), and came in three days, so far as I can remember, to a river which we named _San Juan_, because we arrived there on the day of that saint. Leaving this stream, we passed through a very mountainous country, and turning more to the north, we came to another stream which we named _de las Balsas_, because, it being very high, we had to cross it on rafts. I believe we were two days in going from one river to the other.... Hence we went to another brook, which we called _de la Barranca_ (of the ravine). The distance from one to the other may be estimated at two short days’ journey. The direction is northeast. We then came to a river, after one day’s march, which we called _Rio Frio_, on account of the coldness of its water. Thence we passed through fir woods, at the end of which we found cool brooks.... In two days we came to another brook, called _Vermejo_--always in the same direction, namely, toward the northeast.” There they met Indians from Cibola, and two days afterward they reached the last pueblo. Casteñeda mentions striking a “river” which “flowed” in a deep ravine three days after they entered the “wilderness” north of Chichiltic-calli. He says that the “Rio Vermejo,” the waters of which were muddy and red, was eight leagues from Cibola.