Adjoining San Miguel is the old house where Coronado is said to have lodged in 1540. The "Old Palace," always used by the Governors of New Mexico, is partly given over to a museum of Indian and Mexican curiosities. There is a little library, open only every other afternoon; there are many mountain peaks around, which are not difficult to climb, and which offer charming views. The new State House is a fine modern building, and Governor Hagerman, formerly an attaché of the American Embassy at St. Petersburg, is alert and progressive in his methods.
More than half the residents of Santa Fé speak no English, and these Spanish and Mexican residents have their papers in their own language, their separate schools, and their worship in the old Cathedral. In the early afternoon women in black, with black mantillas over their heads, are seen passing up San Francisco Street and entering the Cathedral, where they fall on their knees and tell their beads in the silent church. Often one may see in the streets a funeral procession. The casket is carried in a cart, and the family sit around it, on the bottom of the wagon. A few friends follow on foot, and thus the pathetic and grotesque little procession winds on its way.
The history lying in the dim background of this ancient Spanish city is one that impresses the imagination. It is a part of all that wonderful early exploration by the Spanish pioneers of the vast region of country that is now known as Arizona and New Mexico.
In 1538 Cabeza de Vaca, after following the disastrous expedition of Pánfilo de Narvaez to Florida, set forth with four men to penetrate the vast unknown wastes to the west, and without compass or provisions they made their way, crossing the Mississippi two years before its discovery by De Soto, reached the Moqui country, and finally arrived in Sinolao with glowing tales that excited the enterprise of the Spanish conquerors and led to the founding of another expedition authorized by the viceroy, Mendoza. It fared forth under the leadership of Padre Marcos de Nizza, who (in 1539) entered the country of the Pimas, passed up the valley of the Santa Ana, and set up the cross, giving the country the name of the New Kingdom of San Francisco.