They said the men at Cibola said the same, to which Alarcon replied that it might well be, and if so they need have no fear, for the sons of the sun would be his brothers and would treat them as he had done.

This seemed to pacify them.

He inquired now how far it was to Cibola, and they answered ten days through an uninhabited country, with no account of the rest of the way because it was inhabited.
* The old Spaniards used "v" and "b" interchangeably, so that Cibola and Cevola would be pronounced the same.

Other letters were used in the same loose way.
** Windows on the sides of the houses, NOT of the WALLS, as one writer has put it.

The villages of the lower part of New Mexico had these walls of circumvallation, but to the northward such walls appear to have been rare.
Alarcon was now more than ever desirous of informing Coronado of his whereabouts, and tried to persuade some of his men to go to Cibola with a message, promising fine rewards.