escaped; a Spaniard, who had been kept in slavery from the time of Narvaez, could give no accounts of any land where there was silver or gold. The guides would purposely lead the Castilians astray, and involve them in morasses; even though death under the fangs of the blood-hounds was the certain punishment. The company grew dispirited, and desired the governor to return, since the region opened no brilliant prospects. "I will not turn back," said Soto, "till I have seen the poverty of the country with my own eyes." The hostile Indians who were taken prisoners were in part put to death, in part enslaved. These were led in chains, with iron collars about their necks; their service was to grind the maize and to carry the baggage. An exploring party discovered Ochus, the harbor of Pensacola; and a message was transmitted to Cuba, desiring that in the ensuing year supplies might be sent to that place.

In March, 1540, the wanderers renewed their march, with an Indian guide, who promised to lead the way to a country governed, it was said, by a woman, and where gold so abounded that the art of melting and refining it was understood. He described the process so well that the credulous Spaniards took heart. The Indian appears to have pointed toward the gold region of North Carolina. The adventurers, therefore, eagerly hastened to the north-east; they passed the Alatamaha; they admired the fertile valleys of Georgia, rich, productive, and full of good rivers. They crossed a northern tributary of the Alatamaha and a southern branch of the Ogeechee; and, at length, came upon the Ogeechee itself, which, in April, flowed with a full channel and a strong current. Much of the time the Spaniards were in wild solitudes; they suffered for want of salt and of meat. Their Indian guide affected madness; but "they said a gospel over him, and the fit left him." Again he involved them in pathless wilds; and then he would have been torn to pieces by the dogs if he had not still been needed to assist the interpreter. Of four Indian captives, who were questioned, one bluntly answered, he knew no country such as they described; the governor ordered him to be burnt, for what was esteemed his falsehood. The sight of the execution quickened the inven

VOL. I.-5

tion of his companions; and the Spaniards made their way to the small Indian settlement of Cutifa-Chiqui. A dagger and a rosary were found here; the story of the Indians traced them to the expedition of Vasquez de Ayllon; and a two days' journey would reach, it was believed, the harbor of St. Helena. The soldiers thought of home, and desired either to make a settlement on the fruitful soil around them, or to return. The governor was "a stern man, and of few words." Willingly hearing the opinions of others, he was inflexible when he had once declared his own mind; and all his followers" condescended to his will."

In May the direction of the march was to the north; to the comparatively sterile country of the Cherokees, and in part through a district in which gold is now found. The inhabitants were poor, but gentle; they offered such presents as their habits of life permitted-deerskins and wild hens. Soto could hardly have crossed the mountains so as to enter the basin of the Tennessee river; it seems, rather, that he passed from the head-waters of the Savannah or the Chattahoochee to the head-waters of the Coosa. The name of Canasauga, a village at which he halted, is still given to a branch of the latter stream. For several months the Spaniards were in the valleys which send their waters to the bay of Mobile. Chiaha was an island distant about a hundred miles from Canasauga. An exploring party which was sent to the north were appalled by the aspect of the Appalachian chain, and pronounced the mountains impassable. They had looked for mines of copper and gold; and their only plunder was a buffalo robe.

In the latter part of July the Spaniards were at Coosa. In the course of the season they had occasion to praise the wild grape of the country, the same, perhaps, which has since been thought worthy of culture, and to admire the luxuriant growth of maize, which was springing from the fertile plains of Alabama. A southerly direction led the train to Tusca loosa; on the eighteenth of October the wanderers reached a considerable town on the Alabama, above the junction of the Tombigbee, and about one hundred miles, or six days' journey, from Pensacola. The village was called Mavilla, or Mobile, a

name which is now applied not to the bay only, but to the river, after the union of its numerous tributaries. The Spaniards, tired of lodging in the fields, desired to occupy the cabins; the Indians, with desperate courage, rose against their invaders. A battle ensued; the terrors of cavalry gave the victory to the Spaniards. The town was set on fire; and a witness of the scene, in a greatly exaggerated account, relates that two thousand five hundred Indians were slain, suffocated, or burnt. "Of the Christians, eighteen died;" one hundred and fifty were wounded with arrows; twelve horses were slain, and seventy hurt. The baggage of the Spaniards was within the town, and was entirely consumed.

Meanwhile, ships from Cuba had arrived at Ochus, now Pensacola. Soto had made no important discoveries; he had gathered no tempting stores of silver and gold; the fires of Mobile had consumed his curious collections; with resolute pride he determined to send no news of himself, until, like Cortes, he had found some rich country.

The region above the mouth of the Mobile was populous and hostile, and yet too poor to promise plunder. In the middle of November, Soto retreated toward the north, his troops already reduced, by sickness and warfare, to five hundred men. A month passed away before he reached winterquarters at Chicaça, a small town in the country of the Chickasaws, in the upper part of the state of Mississippi, probably on the western bank of the Yazoo. Snow fell, but maize was yet standing in the open fields. The Spaniards were able to gather a supply of food, and the deserted town, with such rude cabins as they added, afforded them shelter through the winter. Yet no mines were discovered; no ornaments of gold adorned the savages; their wealth was the harvest of corn, and wigwams were their only palaces; they were poor and independent; they were hardy and loved freedom.

When the spring of 1541 began to open, Soto, as he had usually done with other tribes, demanded of the chieftain of the Chickasaws two hundred men to carry the burdens of his company. The Indians hesitated; and, in the dead of night, deceiving the sentinels, set fire to their own village, in which the Castilians were encamped. On a sudden, half the houses

were in flames; and the loudest notes of the war-whoop rung through the air. The Indians, could they have acted with calm bravery, might have gained a victory; but they trembled at their own success, and feared the unequal battle against weapons of steel. Many of the horses had broken loose; others perished in the stables; most of the swine were consumed; eleven of the Christians were burnt, or lost their lives in the tumult. The clothes which had been saved from the fires of Mobile were destroyed, and the Spaniards, now as naked as the natives, suffered from the cold. Weapons and equipments were consumed or spoiled. But, in a respite of a week, forges were erected, swords newly tempered, and good ashen lances were made, equal to the best of Biscay. When, on the fifteenth of March, the Indians attacked the camp, they found "the Christians" prepared.

The disasters which had been encountered served only to confirm the obstinacy of the governor. Should he, who had promised greater booty than Mexico or Peru had yielded, now return as a defeated fugitive, so naked that his troops were clad only in skins and mats of ivy? In April the search for some wealthy region was renewed; the caravan marched still farther to the west. For seven days it struggled through a wilderness of forests and marshes, and at length came to Indian settlements in the vicinity of the Mississippi. It was then described as more than a mile broad, flowing with a strong current, and by its weight forcing a channel of great depth. In the water, which was always muddy, trees were continually floating down.

The Spaniards were guided by natives to one of the usual crossing-places, probably at the lowest Chickasaw bluff, not far from the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude. The arrival of the strangers awakened curiosity and fear. A multitude of people from the other side of the river, painted and gayly decorated with great plumes of white feathers, the warriors standing in rows with bow and arrows in their hands, the chieftains sitting under awnings as magnificent as the artless manufactures of the natives could weave, came rowing down the stream in a fleet of two hundred canoes, seeming to the admiring Spaniards "like a fair army of galleys." They brought gifts of fish, and

loaves made of the fruit of the persimmon. The boats of the natives were too weak to transport horses; almost a month expired before barges, large enough to hold three horsemen each, were constructed for crossing the river. At length, at the end of May, the Spaniards embarked upon the Mississippi, and were borne to its western bank.

Dakota tribes then occupied the country south-west of the Missouri; Soto had heard its praises; he believed in its vicinity to mineral wealth, and determined to visit its towns. In ascending the Mississippi the party was often obliged to wade through morasses; in June they came, as it would seem, upon the district of Little Prairie, and the dry and elevated lands which extend toward New Madrid. Here the Spaniards were adored as children of the sun, and the blind were brought into their presence to be healed by the sons of light. "Pray only to God, who is in heaven, for whatsoever ye need," said Soto in reply. The wild fruits of that region were abundant; the pecan nut, the mulberry, and two kinds of wild plums, furnished food to the natives. At Pacaha, the northernmost point which Soto reached near the Mississippi, he remained forty days, till near the end of July. The spot cannot be identified; but the accounts of the amusements of the Spaniards confirm the truth of the narrative of their ramblings. The spade-fish, the most whimsical production of the muddy streams of the west, so rare that it is hardly to be found in any museum, is accurately described by the best historian of the expedition.

A party which was sent to examine the regions to the north reported that they were almost a desert. The country nearer the Missouri was said by the Indians to be thinly inhabited; the bison abounded there so much that no maize could be cultivated, and the few inhabitants were hunters. In August, Soto turned, therefore, to the west and north-west, and plunged still more deeply into the interior of the continent. The highlands of White river, more than two hundred miles from the Mississippi, were probably the limit of his march in this direction. The mountains offered neither gems nor gold, and the disappointed explorers marched to the south. They passed through a succession of towns, of which the posi