Ferdinand de Soto and the invasion of Florida

By Frederick A. Ober

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Title: Ferdinand de Soto and the invasion of Florida

Author: Frederick A. Ober


        
Release date: October 26, 2026 [eBook #79864]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1906

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79864

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FERDINAND DE SOTO AND THE INVASION OF FLORIDA ***






  HEROES OF
  AMERICAN HISTORY

  DE SOTO




[Frontispiece: FERDINAND DE SOTO]



  FERDINAND DE SOTO

  AND THE INVASION OF FLORIDA


  BY

  FREDERICK A. OBER



  HEROES OF AMERICAN HISTORY



  ILLUSTRATED



  HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
  NEW YORK AND LONDON
  1906




  Copyright, 1906, by HARPER & BROTHERS

  _All rights reserved._
  Published September, 1906.




  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I. THE MAN ON HORSEBACK
  II. FERDINAND AND ISABELLA
  III. IN THE WILDS OF NICARAGUA
  IV. DE SOTO, THE AVENGER
  V. THE REWARD OF DEVOTION
  VI. ADELANTADO AND GOVERNOR
  VII. THE LANDING IN FLORIDA
  VIII. IN THE FLORIDIAN FORESTS
  IX. BATTLES WITH THE INDIANS
  X. THE FIERCE APALACHEES
  XI. THE FIRST WINTER IN FLORIDA
  XII. THE TRACKLESS WILDERNESS
  XIII. THE PRINCESS AND HER PEARLS
  XIV. DE SOTO'S BEAUTIFUL CAPTIVE
  XV. THE GREAT CHIEF, TUSCALOOSA
  XVI. DESPERATE ENCOUNTER AT MAUVILA
  XVII. DE SOTO'S FATAL DECISION
  XVIII. HOW THE MISSISSIPPI WAS CROSSED
  XIX. A YEAR OF AIMLESS WANDERING
  XX. LAST DAYS OF DE SOTO
  INDEX




ILLUSTRATIONS

FERDINAND DE SOTO ... _Frontispiece_

MAP OF ANCIENT FLORIDA, SHOWING ROUTE OF DE SOTO, 1539-1543

ATAHUALLPA, INCA OF PERU

EARLY INDIAN LIFE

THE MARCH THROUGH THE FOREST

BATTLE OF MAUVILA

DE SOTO ON THE SHORE OF THE MISSISSIPPI

BURIAL OF DE SOTO




AUTHORITIES

ON

FERDINAND DE SOTO AND FLORIDA

XVITH CENTURY.  The "first and best" of three contemporary
narratives, describing the expedition of De Soto, was printed in
Portugal, in 1557, as:

_The True Relation of the Fidalgos of Elvas_.  It was translated and
reprinted by Hakluyt in 1609, and appeared again in 1611, as _The
Worthye and Famous Historic of the Travailles, Discovery, and
Conquest of Terra Florida_.  The latest edition, in English, was
published in New York, 1904.

_The Relation of the Conquest of Florida_ was written by Luis de
Biedma, the king's factor on the expedition, as early as 1544, but
did not appear in print until 1841.

Another personal narrative was that of Rodrigo Ranjel, De Soto's
secretary, which, though written in the form of a journal, when on
the march, also remained in manuscript for more than three hundred
years, and was first issued in 1855.

XVIITH AND XVIIITH CENTURIES.  _La Florida del Inca_, by Garcilaso
(or Garcilasso) de la Vega, was derived from soldiers who were with
De Soto (though more than forty years after the return of the
expedition), and was published first in Lisbon, 1605; in Madrid,
1722.  Translated and republished, New York, 1904.

The narratives of the Fidalgo and Ranjel, though written and
published independently, are generally corroborative, and agree in
important particulars with the "Florida" of the Inca.

XIXTH CENTURY.  _The Conquest of Florida_, by Theodore Irving, New
York, 1851, is based mainly upon the Inca's history, and is quite
complete.

Buckingham Smith, Spanish scholar and indefatigable historian,
devoted much time to original research, and published _The Career of
Hernando de Soto_, 1864, as well as other valuable papers.




FERDINAND DE SOTO




[Illustration: ANCIENT FLORIDA, SHOWING ROUTE OF DE SOTO, 1539-1543]




{1}

FERDINAND DE SOTO


I

THE MAN ON HORSEBACK

1532

In the doorway of his pavilion on the tented hill-slopes of
Cassamarca sat the Inca of Peru.  Around him were his nobles and
captains of companies, from whom he was distinguished, not only by
the deference they paid him, but by the crimson fringe, or _borla_,
badge of royalty, with which his brow was banded.  That memorable
afternoon of November 15th was drawing to its close.  Inca Atahuallpa
had watched since morning for the coming of the strangers, first of
the white race to invade the valley of the sierras in which he was
intrenched.  He had seen them emerge from the gloomy defiles of the
mountains, with the sun shining on their helmets and reflected from
their swords {2} and arquebuses.  He had looked in awed wonder upon
their prancing steeds, their glittering weapons, their flaunting
banners, and had noted with apprehension their solid formation--that
steel-girdled phalanx which was to prove a wedge to split his empire
in twain.

The mailed men of Spain marched straight across the valley and into
the city of Cassamarca, but had hardly reached its central square ere
their commander, grim and merciless Pizarro, detached a small band of
troopers as an embassy to the Inca, in his camp on the hill-side
three miles distant.  Again were the eyes of Atahuallpa greeted with
a vision of armor-clad horsemen as, emerging from behind the city
walls, they swept across the intervening distance and approached his
intrenchments.  Conspicuously in advance was the leader of the
cavalcade, a tall and handsome hidalgo, encased from head to foot in
shining armor.  He was mounted upon a milk-white charger of noble
proportions, which, when midway the distance between city and camp it
encountered a stream twenty feet in width, took it at a bound and
seemed to fly over the ground.  Soon the cavaliers were in front of
{3} the royal ruler, who, while astonished and secretly alarmed, yet
preserved an unmoved countenance.  He directed his gaze to the ground
at his feet, nor would he look up while the leader of the troop
delivered the message with which he had been charged by Pizarro.  Out
of the corners of his eyes, however, he could not refrain from
glancing, observing which, and probably piqued at the Inca's lack of
interest, the cavalier resolved to arouse it.

He was, and had been for years, the "best lance" in the army, and by
far the finest horseman of Pizarro's cavalry, so it was from
pardonable vanity, perhaps, that he suddenly put spurs to his horse
and dashed down the hill-side to the plain out-stretched beneath.
There, in the waning light of the departing day, he put the fiery
war-horse through a variety of evolutions, circling round and round,
impetuously charging an imaginary foe, and finally advancing at full
speed upon the Inca and his nobles.  The latter fled in wild dismay,
but Atahuallpa sat immovable, even when the snorting, panting
charger, thrown suddenly upon his haunches, launched out with
iron-shod hoofs close to his head.

This was the manner in which Ferdinand {4} de Soto introduced himself
to the Inca of Peru.  For it was he (though by some accounts it was
Hernando Pizarro) who, as the leader of that little band of troopers,
was the first of white men to hold converse with the renowned "Child
of the Sun."  It is said that the Inca ordered such of his nobles as
had fled at the approach of the war-horse to be executed; but
whatever his feelings towards them may have been, for the gallant
cavalier he ever after entertained the greatest respect, and this
strange meeting was but the beginning of a friendship which lasted
until severed by his untimely death.

The conquest of Peru was achieved, some historians have asserted, not
so much by Francisco Pizarro, the reputed commander of the invading
army, as by Ferdinand de Soto, captain of cavalry, and the adored
leader of an invincible band of dragoons.  Certain it is that he
always led the advance, whether in reconnoitering the enemies'
outposts on the skirmish line, scouting the unknown country, or in
hand-to-hand encounters.  He had joined Pizarro at the island of
Puna, before he had really landed on the main, and when in sore need
of reinforcements.  From the very first he had asserted {5} his
independence of command, had refused to obey any orders that his
judgment did not approve, and especially those which related to the
plundering and massacring of the natives.

At the time he joined Pizarro, bringing two ships well laden, and one
hundred companions armed to the teeth, the ferocious Francisco had so
exasperated the Peruvians by his massacres and murders, that he and
his band were about to be exterminated.  They would doubtless have
paid the extreme penalty of their evil deeds had it not been for the
opportune arrival of De Soto, who not only supplied the men and
munitions necessary for an invasion of the mainland, but also
dictated the course to be pursued.

While it may not be claimed with truth that he was more humane than
the majority of those cruel Spaniards who accomplished the conquest
of Mexico, Central and South America, yet it may be confidently
asserted that he had within him the elements of a manhood to which
most of them were utter strangers.  He was bold, dashing, and, above
all, high-spirited and honorable.  Though he had come to America with
only a sword and a shield as his fortune, he was a gentleman {6}
born, and no one could rob him of his birthright.  With that sword he
had fought his way to honorable distinction; with that shield he had
turned aside the arrows of calumny, by which his enemies had assailed
him often in the past.

We will not, at this moment, inquire into the circumstances which
induced, or rather compelled, his going to the assistance of Pizarro;
but let it suffice to state that he had been promised by the
commander-in-chief the rank of lieutenant-general, or second in
command.  When he arrived at the seat of war, however, he found that
post occupied by Francisco Pizarro's brother, Hernando, who,
moreover, very plainly intimated that he intended to hold it against
all comers.

It was not De Soto's desire to foment a disturbance, and demand a
nominal authority of which he was the actual possessor; so, after
roundly berating Pizarro for his bad faith, he accepted things as
they were and took his place in the army of invasion.  From that time
forward, however, he treated the Pizarros with contempt, and though
they were four in number (Francisco, Hernando, Juan, and Gonzalo,
besides a half-brother, Martin Alcantara), he was always ready to {7}
fight them, one and all, at the winking of an eyelid or the dropping
of a glove.  This they well knew, and took good care never to offend
him, so that they all departed their different ways eventually (most
of them through meeting their death by violence) without coming into
personal combat.

Holding, then, the position of a commander of dragoons, every one
devoted to him and ready to fight for him to the death, yet nominally
at the orders of the commander-in-chief, Ferdinand de Soto made
common cause with the invaders, and was foremost of them all in the
conquest of the Inca's kingdom.  Hernando Pizarro commanded another
body of dragoons, similar in size and equipment to De Soto's, and the
wonder is that their followers did not clash in conflict.  That they
did not was probably owing to the fact that both bands of marauders
were engaged against the poor natives, whom they despoiled without
mercy, and sometimes murdered.

When we speak of Ferdinand de Soto as a chivalrous and merciful
conqueror, we must bear in mind that he was in contrast with one of
the most brutal and merciless of those Spaniards who trailed the flag
of their country {8} through blood and dishonor, during the many
years they were permitted by Providence to scourge the southern
portions of our hemisphere.  While in Peru, indeed, he was not only
comparatively humane, but actually so; though when he had an
absolutely independent command in Florida (as we shall see later) he
hung and burned Indian caciques, cut off their hands, and cast them
to the dogs, with that disregard for the sacredness of human life
displayed by Pizarro himself.

Now, Francisco Pizarro was an astute commander who, though he had
many and grievous faults, could appreciate a good man at his full
worth.  He saw that De Soto was immeasurably superior to his
brothers, and governed himself accordingly, wisely ignoring his
contempt and insubordination, and at all times treating him with
respect.  When, therefore, after the mainland invasion had commenced,
De Soto, sent off to scout the country, remained many days over the
time allowed him, and returned without any explanation, Pizarro said
nothing.  He sent him off again, and this time he was gone so long,
it became common talk in the army that he had at last thrown off the
commander's yoke and revolted.  A spy returned, in {9} fact, with
information to that effect; but Pizarro knew his man, and gave no
credence to the report.  Meanwhile, De Soto and his men were ranging
the country at will.  They were the first, it is said, to discover
that magnificent highway of the Incas, which connected the two great
capitals, Quito and Cuzco; the first to penetrate the sierras and
explore the wonderful valleys abounding in natural wealth and teeming
with inhabitants.

Hernando Pizarro was jealous of the freedom and personal initiative
allowed his rival, and one day tauntingly asked him if he intended to
penetrate the kingdom as far as Cassamarca, where the Inca was said
to dwell, and perchance form an alliance with him.  Ferdinand flashed
back at him the reply that he intended to do as he pleased, and he
certainly was going to visit the Inca, whether the rest would keep
him company or not.

"As for you, Señor Hernando--the only one of your family who can
boast a father!--presume not upon your connections to insult me with
impunity.  Neither you nor your brother can control my movements!"

Hernando turned livid with rage, but he dared not reply.  He reported
the remark {10} to Francisco, who merely shrugged his shoulders,
though the allusion to his illegitimacy cut him to the quick.

"It is well," he finally said.  "Let him go to see the Inca
Atahuallpa, for there may be no better way of getting rid of him!
For it is said that the Inca is all-powerful, that he has warriors as
the sands of the sea; and if this be so, who, my dear brother, can be
better spared than Don Fernando?"

"Who, indeed?" answered Hernando, with a malignant smile.  "But
suppose he returns--that he escapes the Inca's warriors--then he
gathers all the laurels!"

"Well, he may, so we get all the gold!  Laurel leaves fade quickly,
do they not?  While gold, bright gold, can never tarnish."

Pizarro said no more, for he was a man of few words; but he lost no
time in despatching De Soto on his dangerous errand.  With only
twenty-four men, though the pick of his company, he set out.  Knowing
no fear, craving adventure, always anxious to be first in a fight and
the last to draw out, Ferdinand de Soto gayly pranced away, as to a
tourney.  He and his men sought again the great highway, along which
they swept, resplendent in their armor, like blazing meteors,
bursting {11} upon the astonished gaze of the terrified natives, only
to disappear again, with clash of weapons and metallic rattle of
accoutrements.

Such forays as this were the delight of De Soto, for he had made many
in the wilds of Nicaragua previous to his adventure in Peru.  He had
gained there a rich experience, which stood him in good stead now in
his dealings with the natives.  Indian nature is much the same the
wide world over; and though the natives of Nicaragua were far beneath
those of Peru in culture, at heart they did not differ.  Thus it was
that De Soto was successful, everywhere he went, in gaining the
confidence of the aborigines; thus it was that, though he met an army
ready to fight him, gathered in a valley of the mountains, he and his
men were finally summoned to a banquet, rather than to battle.  After
it was over, he was about to ride on again, when he was met by an
envoy from the Inca himself, bearing presents for Pizarro, and in all
honor could not refuse his request to return and escort him to the
camp of the commander-in-chief.

It was not in accord with De Soto's desires to return, for he had set
himself the task of {12} being the first of his race to meet and hold
an interview with the then unknown Inca.  So he went back
reluctantly, and, if this were a narrative of Pizarro's doings,
instead of De Soto's, we might tell how the envoy was received, how
the commander was filled, first, with a great desire to see the owner
of the golden treasure, of which he had sent specimens to Pizarro,
and again with apprehension at the difficulties in the way.  In the
end, the whole army set out for Cassamarca, with De Soto's company in
the lead, and Hernando Pizarro bringing up the rear.




{13}

II

FERDINAND AND ISABELLA

1501-1521

It may be presumed that before proceeding further with the career of
Ferdinand de Soto in Peru, the reader may wish to learn something of
his previous life, and how he came to the New World in search of
adventure.  Acting upon this assumption, we will turn back a few
leaves in his biography, and investigate the scant records of his
early life as they exist in Spain.  Like his great countrymen,
Pizarro and Cortés, he was a native of Estremadura, which seems to
have been prolific in sturdy sons and daughters.  Unlike them, he was
born a gentleman, "by all four descents"--which means that not only
his father and mother were of "gentle" birth, but also their parents
as well.  Then again, he was born in the noble town of Jerés de los
Caballeros, anciently a seat of the Templars, the ruins of whose
castle may still be traced.

{14}

Some have given his birthplace as Barcarota, in the same province of
Estremadura; but the majority of his biographers agree on Jerés, or
Xerés (pronounced Hayrás), which lies about forty miles south of
Badajoz, where resided a family, that of Don Pedro Arias de Avila,
with which he became intimately connected.  It was in one of the
ruinous castles of Jerés that Ferdinand de Soto was born; but so
obscure was his family at that time, that no exact record was kept of
the occurrence.  The year, however, was probably 1500, or 1501, and
it is generally agreed that he made his advent with the sixteenth
century.

Though his family belonged to the _hidalguia_, or nobility, it must
have been quite poor, for on the death of his parents, which occurred
when he was a youth, Ferdinand was thrown upon the world.
Fortunately for him, he had won the regard of Don Pedro de Avila, the
Count of Punorostro, who occupied one of the several castles for
which ancient Badajoz is famous.  This nobleman invited him to make
his home at Badajoz, and is said to have supported him at the
university of Salamanca for a number of years, where he acquired some
knowledge of books, {15} but not enough to make him eligible for a
profession.  As a member of the Spanish nobility, indeed, it was not
necessary that he should be proficient in much besides horsemanship,
sword-play, fencing, and the like, and in these he led all his young
companions.  Possessing a handsome face, muscular limbs, and a
shapely body, combined with a happy disposition and gallant demeanor,
he became a great favorite at the tourney, where he won the
admiration of the fair sex, and took prizes in every competitive
encounter with the _caballeros_.  There was no other horseman like
him in all Estremadura, neither a gallant who was so reckless and
jovial with the cavaliers, but at the same time held in such high
repute by the ladies.

Now, Don Pedro had a family, comprising several sons and daughters,
as well as a wife who was so nearly related to royalty that she
entertained the highest hopes of great alliances for her children.
She was, in fact, a niece of the Marchioness of Moya, that beloved
friend and constant companion of Queen Isabella of Spain, who was
with her when she died, and who nearly lost her life by an assassin's
dagger intended for her royal mistress.  The Marchioness of Moya,
{16} it may be recalled, has the credit of inclining Queen Isabella's
ear to the story told by Columbus when he went begging for some one
to send him out to find a world.  Her niece, the Doña Isabel, was
also a favorite at court, at which, as soon as they became old
enough, she presented her daughters, two of whom were noted for their
beauty.  The most promising of them all was the second daughter,
named after her mother, Isabel de Bobadilla, and whom her parents had
decided should marry no less than a prince of the royal blood.  They
had, in truth, picked out the very prince she should espouse; but,
alas for their plans!  Isabel fell in love with Ferdinand de Soto.

Ferdinand, of course, had fallen in love with her; but being only a
poor cavalier, and regarded in the light of a dependant of the
family, with no fortune but his sword, and that, perhaps, a borrowed
one, he was a long time in declaring his affection.  This should be
said to his honor; but such a condition of things could not exist
forever, it must be admitted, and the day came when each became
acquainted with the affection of the other.  And, what was very bad
for them, Don Pedro became acquainted with it also!  {17} He was away
when the affair first developed so far that Ferdinand first spoke of
his love, having sought and obtained the position of governor of
Darien.  It was a position which the king had no right to give him,
as it belonged really to Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, who had fought the
natives of Darien, subdued the province, and also discovered the
Pacific Ocean, before Don Pedro received his appointment.

But "might was right" with the king and Don Pedro, and the latter
sailed from Spain in the year 1514 to take possession of his
province.  What he did there has a bearing on the fortunes of De
Soto, else it would not be detailed in this connection; but it was of
vastly greater consequence to poor Balboa, who lost, not only all his
hard-earned possessions, but his head as well, which Don Pedro caused
to be cut off in 1517.  From this it will be seen that Ferdinand de
Soto's prospective father-in-law was not the sort of man to be
trifled with.  In very truth, he was one of the most cruel and
tyrannical of all those Spaniards who went out to conquer the natives
of the New World.  Not alone that, but he was peculiarly ferocious in
his cruelty, taking delight in {18} the infliction of pain and even
torture upon the innocent natives of his territory.

Imagine, then, the reception he gave poor Ferdinand when, the old
tyrant having returned to Spain, the young man threw himself at his
feet and announced his love for Isabel.  At first he was speechless
from indignation, then, in a voice trembling with passion, he
bellowed: "What?  You--poverty-stricken wretch that you are, one who
has sat at my table and lived in my castle for years!  You, dastard,
venture to aspire to the hand of the daughter of Don Pedro Arias de
Avila, Count of Punorostro, an hidalgo of ancient lineage, friend of
the king and the queen?  You must be mad!  Mad, I say!  Do you hear?
Begone, ingrate, and never let me see thy face again!"

The young man thought it prudent to retire, not only from the
immediate presence of Don Pedro, but from the castle; but before he
departed from Badajoz he somehow secured a final interview with his
beloved.  She appeared at the grated window of her room, which
overlooked a garden, and he, standing beneath, amid the myrtles and
the rose-trees, poured forth his woes.  She listened in silence, then
said, in sorrowful {19} accents: "Ferdinand, it is true, you cannot
remain here longer.  My father is a cruel man, and he never forgives!
He thinks you have betrayed a trust, that you have committed a crime,
in loving me."

"But I do love you, Isabel.  I will go away, but I shall return; and
you--you will be true to me?"

"Always, Ferdinand.  Always.  But do not allow my father to get you
in his power.  Remember what he did to Vasco Nuñez [Balboa].  Did he
not behead him?  And for what?  Merely because he aspired too
greatly.  And--and he was betrothed to my sister, too!  Ah me, that I
should be compelled to say it--but my father is a vengeful man!"

It was true, as Isabel had said, that in order to get the gallant
Balboa completely in his power, Don Pedro had pledged him his eldest
daughter in marriage, then had turned and slain him.  Ferdinand
pressed her to elope with him, as soon as her father should return to
Darien; but she had too high a sense of honor and of her obligations
to her family to consent.

"No," she mournfully replied, "it cannot be.  He will return; but he
will not leave {20} you here to plot in his absence.  He is too wise
for that.  And, being himself deceitful, he will not trust me,
either.  Ferdinand, he will compel you to go with him, and--and I see
no way other than that you must go."

"Compel!" replied De Soto, scornfully.  "Isabel, no man hath ever
compelled me yet.  And again, he has driven me from him."

"Yes, but that was when in a rage.  He will recall you, Ferdinand,
and (though I warn you to beware of his friendship), it may be, that
way your fortune lies, beloved."

"Ah, that would impel me," declared De Soto, warmly.  "If he does
invite me, surely I will go to that land of gold, where quickly I may
win a fortune, perchance fame.  Then I will return, Isabel."

"And I shall await you, Ferdinand, even through long years!"

This was the purport of their conversation, in the last meeting
between Ferdinand and Isabel, and it fell out as she had predicted.
Informed by her governess that Isabel's heart was in the keeping of
the young cavalier, Don Pedro at first stormed and raged, declaring
that she should die rather than become the bride of an impecunious
nobleman {21} like De Soto.  Then, as he grew calmer, he took counsel
with himself and dissembled.  He sent for Ferdinand and asked him if
he would accept a captain's commission in the expedition he was then
preparing for Darien.  He pictured the land of promise, rich in vast
possibilities for the young and ardent adventurer; he assured him
that wealth and distinction awaited him in that land, where, as the
favorite of the governor, he would be rapidly promoted.

"Enough, Don Pedro," exclaimed De Soto.  "I will serve you
faithfully; but I ask no favors, only an opportunity for winning my
way with my sword."

"That you shall have," replied Don Pedro.  "Darien is the land of
opportunities, and you may carve out an empire.  Sooth, there will be
blood enough to spill, and gold enough for all!"

Don Pedro was as good as his word.  Overjoyed to have De Soto in his
power, and relieved at being able to part him so easily from his
daughter, he advanced the money for a splendid outfit, and gave him a
commission as captain of a troop.  They sailed for Darien in the year
1519, with a gallant company of fortune-seekers, most of whom {22}
"found their graves in the land whither they had gone to dig for
gold."

As Ferdinand was about embarking, he was handed a note from Isabel,
containing two lines, merely: "Dearest, remember my promise, and
_remember my warning_!"  Her promise--to remain faithful always; her
warning--against the treachery of her own father.

Ferdinand de Soto pondered her words, and took heed.  That he escaped
the snares set for him by Don Pedro, was owing to the watchfulness of
Isabel; that he held to higher aims and loftier purposes than his
companion _conquistadores_, was because of his love for her and the
consciousness that in the end she was to be his reward.

He was noble by nature; but many noble natures became perverted in
that prolonged hunt for gold; many a man of honorable instincts
became a monster of cruelty when pitted against the savages of Darien
and Panama.  It was, however, the universal testimony of De Soto's
companions that he was constantly humane to the unfortunate Indians
whom he was ordered by Don Pedro to torture or destroy.  To women and
children, especially, he was tender and considerate; {23} thus many a
poor wretch was saved from suffering through the love that existed
between Isabel de Bobadilla and Ferdinand de Soto!

Old Don Pedro, or "Pedrarias," as he was sometimes called, dissembled
well; but his settled purpose, which was to destroy his daughter's
suitor at the earliest opportunity, was perfectly apparent to De
Soto.  It was no secret, even, among the men of his command, who,
seeing the unequal fight that was being carried on, were the closer
drawn to him, through sympathy.  They soon became his pronounced
partisans, and would follow him through fire, if need be, when he
ordered them.  Though never a word was spoken as to this between the
captain and his men, the latter frequently foiled Pedrarias in his
efforts to find a joint in De Soto's armor, through which he might
thrust a poisoned weapon.

Ferdinand himself, while ever alert, always treated Don Pedro with
the deference due to a benefactor, and the father of one whom he
loved better than his life.  As time went by, and Pedrarias found
himself continually foiled in his evil purpose, he became nearly
insane with rage.  Indeed, it {24} is doubtful if he were not insane
during his entire term as governor of Darien and Nicaragua.  For what
man in his right mind would order, as he did often and again, the
extermination of people who had never offended, save by withholding
from him the gold they found in the forest, and which was theirs by
right?  And it was almost invariably Captain de Soto's troop of
horsemen that was ordered on this disgusting service.  Thus a twofold
object was attained by crafty Pedrarias: the extermination of the
natives, and the decimation of the detested troop.

As he did not accompany the troops on their forays, he was not aware,
at first, that his orders were disobeyed, and that the poor natives
were oftener warned of an attack than sufferers from it.  At last,
the suspicious old governor sent out a creature of his company to spy
upon the doings of De Soto in the field, and this man reported the
true condition of affairs.  When he heard it, Don Pedro nearly choked
with rage.  "Ho!" he exclaimed.  "That is it!  Instead of putting
those red scoundrels to the sword, and tearing them to pieces with
the dogs, he merely sacks their dwellings and then allows them {25}
to return.  Little wonder that I have not received gold enough, in
the months just past, to pay the expenses of my household!

"Now, go you, Captain Perez, and tell that squeamish son of a nobody,
Fernan Soto, that my orders are for all villages to be razed, or
burned to the ground, and for all Indians to be killed.  He is not to
spare a single one, remember, and you are to see that he does as I
command."

This Captain Perez was scarcely less ferocious than Pedrarias
himself--he could not be more so--and, moreover, he hated De Soto for
his popularity.  So he gladly undertook the errand that was to result
in his humiliation; but when he delivered the orders he met with such
a reception that he returned like a whipped cur to his master.  He
found De Soto sitting easily on his horse, superintending the
collecting of tribute from some Indians of a forest hamlet, who were
only too glad to escape with their lives, and were bringing him all
their portable possessions.

He heard Perez through, disdainfully and in silence, then replied:
"My life and my services are, of course, always at my superior's
commands, and I shall do his bidding--so long as I can do so without
besmirching my {26} character as a Spanish cavalier.  But in this
instance, Captain Perez, it would seem that the service to be
performed could more fittingly be done by yourself!  I am surprised
at Don Pedro's lack of discrimination, and this, if you like, you may
tell him from me."

This was the reply, in substance, which Perez carried back to
Pedrarias, and, as the ferocious captain had the reputation of being
in his element while massacring unarmed Indians and burning their
dwellings, he took it as an insult.  In this view he was supported by
Pedrarias, who told him, in effect, that were he a younger man, this
insolence should not go unpunished.  "But, alas!" he exclaimed,
smiling significantly, "I am no longer able to hold my own on the
field of honor.  Old age has palsied my arm, and perhaps, also, it
has enfeebled my constitution, for I seem to lack courage to meet
this insolent young man and chastise him as he deserves!"

This hint was not lost upon Perez, who, as Pedrarias knew, of course,
was a noted duellist.  He had already killed several men and had
never, himself, been harmed.  A challenge was promptly sent to De
Soto and {27} as promptly accepted.  Feeling assured that the young
man's doom was surely sealed, Pedrarias was in high glee, and issued
invitations to all the officials and dignitaries of his capital,
which was then at Panama, the city he had founded.

A noted and numerous assemblage witnessed the combat, which took
place on the plain outside the city.  Though each man had his
partisans, and it was with difficulty that Ferdinand restrained his
troopers from assaulting his opponents, fair play was given, and the
fight proceeded according to the "code of honor."  It was to be a
sword-fight, and to the death.  As the combatants stepped into the
arena, a murmur of admiration went around the throng, chiefly on
account of De Soto's gallant appearance and his youth, as contrasted
with the savage aspect of his grizzled opponent.

Ferdinand was the embodiment of Spanish chivalry, in the eyes of the
dames and gentlemen who loved Spain for her glorious traditions.  He
seemed a typical knight-errant, clad as he was in shining armor,
tall, erect, confident of bearing, and sweeping the assemblage with
his flashing glances.  He reminded the veterans of the Moorish war
{28} (who, under King Ferdinand, had driven the Moslems from
Andalusia) of their knightly defender, Garcilaso, when he went forth
to meet the Moor in mortal combat on the _vega_ of Granada.

Many a prayer was muttered for his success, and many a scowling
glance was cast at old Pedrarias, who, crafty dissembler that he was,
could not conceal his satisfaction.  The combat lasted two long
hours, and its various stages might have been followed by scanning
the features of Don Pedro, who cried out in delight when Ferdinand
received a scratch, and growled like a lion when his champion seemed
in danger.

As Ferdinand received several slight wounds during the protracted
conflict, while his opponent remained untouched, Pedrarias seemed to
have no doubt as to the issue.  The old soldier forced the fighting
from the first, Ferdinand remaining mostly on the defensive, having
all he could do to parry the lightning-like blows and thrusts that
were rained upon him.  But, through it all, he kept himself cool and
collected, never once losing temper nor allowing himself to be taken
off his guard.

From the very fact that the fierce Perez had forced the fighting, he
had, naturally, {29} expended his strength in doing so, while
Ferdinand had held his in reserve.  As the old duellist's thrusts
became feebler, those of his adversary became more forceful, until at
last the veteran was compelled to act wholly on the defensive.  He
was finally forced upon his knees, while, with a rapid upward cut,
Ferdinand gashed his sword-hand at the wrist.  His weapon fell to the
ground, whither, in attempting to recover it, Perez swiftly followed.
He was then completely at the mercy of Ferdinand, who, planting a
foot upon his breast, and holding the point of his sword at his
throat, demanded submission.  A single word would have saved the
surly veteran's life, but, game to the last, he refused to utter it.

"Very well," exclaimed the magnanimous victor.  "Then I give back to
you a life not worth the taking, since it is not worth the asking."
He removed his foot, and, carefully wiping his sword, returned it to
its scabbard.




{30}

III

IN THE WILDS OF NICARAGUA

1521-1524

Imagine the rage and confusion of Pedrarias at beholding the man whom
he persisted in regarding as his enemy the centre of a tumultuous and
admiring throng.  But he fumed and threatened to no purpose, for
Ferdinand de Soto was the hero of the hour, and thenceforth the
darling of the army.  His delighted troopers lifted him upon their
shoulders, all clad in weighty armor as he was, and carried him
around the field, with shouts of triumph.

Don Pedro was compelled to overlook these proceedings, and, like the
fabled Giant Despair at the cave's mouth, gnawed his nails with
impotent vexation.  As for the crestfallen duellist, he slipped out
of sight as soon as possible, and took the first ship for Spain.
Thus the Isthmus was well rid of one villain; and if old Pedrarias
had gone with {31} him, there would have been few, if any, mourners
over his absence in Panama.  Still, the latter continued his
depredations as before, and he by no means gave up the idea of making
way with Ferdinand, though he had not the temerity to send him to the
scaffold nor the courage to assassinate him openly.  He could provoke
nobody to challenge him a second time, for, aside from the fact that
nearly everybody was his friend, he had proved himself the most
accomplished swordsman in the army.

Not very far from Panama lay the rich region of Veragua, populous
with Indians and abounding in gold.  This region was invaded, by the
orders of Don Pedro, and swept with fire and sword.  Troops of
blood-hounds accompanied the Spaniards, and the terrible outrages
committed by man and beast combined at last aroused the resentment of
a powerful chief named Uracca, who soon showed the ruthless invaders
of what he was capable.  He assembled a vast army of savages, who,
though half-clothed in skins, or entirely naked, were skilled in the
use of the poisoned arrow, and were otherwise armed with war-clubs,
javelins, and spears made of hardened wood tipped with copper.

{32}

Pedrarias sent out his army in two divisions one in ships along the
coast, and commanded by a lawyer named Espinosa; the other by land,
under Francisco Pizarro, with orders to form a junction with the
first division when it should reach and land in the enemies' country.
As there were no roads, or even open trails, in that wild land,
Pizarro's division was far behind Espinosa's in reaching the
appointed place of rendezvous.  Without awaiting the arrival of
Pizarro, Espinosa disembarked his soldiers in a sheltered harbor and
established a camp in a valley surrounded by forest.

Unknown to Espinosa, Chief Uracca himself was guiding the movements
of the Indians.  His scouts and spies had brought him exact
information of the Spaniards' forces, and his most expert warriors
had enticed them into the forest, where thousands of savages lay in
ambush.  Then, when he had drawn his foes into a deep and gloomy
gorge, whence it was impossible for them to escape without great
loss, Uracca shouted the piercing war-whoop.  Suddenly, as if
descended from the tops of the giant trees that towered above them,
hundreds of Indians appeared, and from their powerful {33} bows
launched a shower of poisoned arrows.  Few of these arrows pierced
the armor in which most of the Spaniards were encased, but such as
were not thus protected were doomed to an agonizing death.  They fell
by scores, and many who escaped the arrows were trampled upon by
their companions in the tumult of retreat.  Too late, then, Espinosa
saw that he had been entrapped, and wished he had waited for Pizarro,
whose greater experience might have prevented this disaster.

The Spaniards were routed, and, in a panic, attempted to withdraw
from their perilous position; but the wary Uracca had closed in
behind them with a thousand warriors, and all hope of escape seemed
to be vain.  Massing in phalanx, so far as the broken nature of the
ground would permit, the Spaniards forced a passage to the verge of
the valley in which they had encamped; but here they were halted by
the horde of savages resolved upon their extermination.

Their destruction seemed assured, when, just as the sun was sinking
behind the hills, they observed a great commotion in the ranks of
their opponents.  It appeared as if they were being attacked in the
rear, and {34} such, indeed, was the case, for soon the despairing
Spaniards heard the well-known war-cry, "Santiago!  Santiago!" and
upon their vision burst a band of horsemen, led by Ferdinand de Soto.
He and his dragoons had formed a part of Pizarro's company, and,
being in the van, were the first to hear the sound of conflict and
the first to hurry to the rescue.  They arrived, as we have seen,
just in time to save their comrades from total destruction, for at
sight of their horses, and on receiving their impetuous charge, the
Indians fled in wild terror.  They had felt sure of Espinosa's
soldiers; but the horses and their riders, impervious in their armor
of steel, were too powerful for them to resist.  Uracca tried to
rally them again to the attack, and they returned, like a wave
rolling upon the strand; but De Soto quickly formed his battalion as
a protection to the rear-guard, charging upon the Indians when they
approached too closely, and a safe retreat was thus effected.

Pizarro arrived in time to establish a camp that night, but, famished
and exhausted as they were, the Spaniards resolved upon a retreat to
the ships, which was finally effected after midnight, De Soto and his
troopers {35} holding the desperate savages at bay.  They safely
embarked, and, sailing down the coast, at quite a distance from the
scene of their disgraceful defeat came upon an Indian village.
Nearly all the men were with Uracca in the mountains, but the town
was filled with defenceless women and children, whom Espinosa
surrounded with his soldiers, intending to carry them away as slaves.

This proceeding was resented by De Soto, who denounced the
lawyer-commander as a coward, and threatened to ride away with his
entire troop if he still persisted in his intention.  Espinosa, on
his part, called De Soto a mutineer, and a traitor to the governor,
to whom he would promptly report his conduct.  The answer the young
captain made to this threat was to assemble his men, and then, riding
to Espinosa's tent, repeat his demand for the unconditional release
of the prisoners.

"You may do as you please respecting making a report to Don Pedro,"
he said to Espinosa; "but I am not under your orders, neither am I
disposed to assist you in the event that you are attacked by the
warriors of Uracca.  In a word, release these women {36} and children
or I and my men will ride away.  Now, choose you, and at once!"

It was evident to Espinosa that the Indian chief was sending out
runners to assemble his warriors for another attack, and as his force
was already weakened by the great losses sustained, he was compelled
to comply with De Soto's demand.  As further retreat was
impracticable, it was resolved to send to Panama for supplies and
reinforcements, which were absolutely necessary to save the little
army and hold what small portion of territory had been conquered.  De
Soto volunteered to go to Panama, and rode the entire distance
through the forests, then swarming with hostile Indians, accompanied
only by a single trooper, like himself a superb horseman and intrepid
spirit.  During his absence, Chief Uracca entirely surrounded
Espinosa's encampment, effectually cutting off all supplies, and
reducing the beleaguered Spaniards to a diet of roots and herbs.

Returning as rapidly as possible, De Soto broke through the line of
investment, and threw a small reinforcement into the camp; then,
taking command of his dragoons, he foraged the surrounding country
with such success that the army was enabled to subsist {37} until
assistance arrived from Panama, in the shape of more than four
hundred men commanded by Don Pedro himself.  Altogether, when he
arrived, the army amounted to more than five hundred, counting new
adventurers and volunteers.  High hopes were entertained that with
this force Veragua could be over-run and subdued; but they still had
Chief Uracca to reckon with, and he had collected a larger army of
warriors than ever before.

The two forces came into collision on the banks of a deep and rapid
river, in attempting to cross which the Spaniards were assailed by
such a storm of javelins and poisoned arrows that they wavered, then
fell back, then broke into headlong flight.  Not even the impassioned
pleadings of Don Pedro could stop them; and, in fact, he himself was
compelled to ride from the field in a hurry to avoid being made a
prisoner.  Owing to the efforts of De Soto and Pizarro, the men were
rallied on open ground and made a stand, committing great havoc in
the savage ranks with their ordnance; but they could not be induced
to pursue the Indians into the forests again.

Don Pedro now saw what warfare against Uracca was like, and could
understand how {38} his captains had been, one after the other,
driven with slaughter from the country.  But he was obstinate--as we
know--and hesitated to abandon the field and order a retreat.  He
needed but another lesson in Indian cunning, however, to induce him
to change his mind.  This was given him by Uracca in the following
manner.  Learning that the Spaniards were desperately enraged because
of their lack of success in finding gold, he allowed several of his
men to be captured, who, when threatened with torture unless they
divulged the hiding-place of the chief's treasure, promised to
conduct their captors to the place where it was concealed.

Pedrarias was in high glee, and taunted De Soto and his veteran
officers with their lack of skill in matters of the sort.  They were
too chicken-hearted, he said, to apply the torture, by which alone
information could be obtained as to the deposits of precious metal,
and he would show them what they ought to do.  De Soto retorted that
a man would say anything expected of him when put to torture; and,
moreover, he did not have faith in the pretended revelation, but, on
the contrary, suspected treachery.

"You will give your opinion when asked {39} for it," snapped Don
Pedro.  "I was fighting Indians, remember, when you were eating the
crumbs that fell from my table, while I was absent from my
castle--yea, while you were prowling around that castle seeking to
purloin my most precious jewel!"

Ferdinand laid his hand quickly on his sword-hilt, and his eyes
flashed angrily; but he turned away without a word.  His opinion,
however, though unasked, was speedily confirmed, for when the forty
men, whom the governor despatched to the spot indicated by the
captives, arrived at the supposed treasure-vault, they were set upon
by Indians in ambush and murdered.  One mangled survivor finally
reached camp with the dismal tidings, on receipt of which Pedrarias
ordered every captive in his possession thrown at once to the dogs.
As the ravening brutes tore the wretched Indians limb from limb, he
looked on calmly, gloating over the gory spectacle, which was by no
means an uncommon one for him to witness.

"Sorry am I we have so few to feed the hounds," he was heard to
mutter.  "The poor creatures are famished!  Sooth, there is one
Christian I would like them to try teeth upon!"

{40}

He meant De Soto, of course; and it is said that Ferdinand overheard
the remark, and, striding up to him, shook a mailed fist in his face,
exclaiming: "One hound _has_ tried his teeth on me, and perchance
they are broken, Señor Governor!"

Pedrarias glared at him, but ventured no reply, for he too obviously
merited the vile epithet De Soto had applied to him, and feared to
provoke an encounter.  Another hero of this war, who shone in
contrast with Pedrarias, was the Indian chief, Uracca.
Notwithstanding that his opponent had delivered to the blood-hounds,
not only warriors taken in battle, but infants torn from their
mothers' breasts (children whose innocence should have appealed to
his heart), the chief did not retaliate.  Indeed, it is said that
once having made captive a Spanish lady of Panama, he treated her
with great consideration, and when opportunity offered returned her
safe and sound to her friends.  When, at last, despairing of
conquering this brave and gallant savage, Pedrarias ordered a retreat
from Veragua, Uracca refrained from pursuit, satisfied at having
driven the ferocious invaders from his country.

In such inglorious labors as we have narrated, {41} Ferdinand de Soto
passed his first five years in America, and when they were gone he
found himself no better off, as to fame or fortune, than when he
landed at Darien.  He had expected to gather gold-veined pebbles from
every stream and precious pearls on every strand, but, in common with
others, had been disappointed.  If he ever reflected seriously, he
must have seen that he was no better than a bandit--that he was one,
in fact--for, instead of devoting himself to some honorable
occupation, like mining, or the tilling of the soil, he had spent all
his time in ravaging Indian villages, contributing towards, if not
actively engaged in, the massacre of innocent natives, and destroying
the fruits of their toil.

It is strange that he should have so persistently attached himself to
Pedrarias; though the truth is that he might have gone east or west,
north or south, and he could not have removed himself beyond his
sphere of influence.  He had an opportunity, in 1524, to sail
southward with Francisco Pizarro, when he made his first voyage in
search of Peru; but, though urged by that adventurer to accompany
him, he positively refused, having no liking for the man.

{42}

Soon after the return of Pizarro from this voyage, Pedrarias was
superseded by Don Pedro de los Rios, a new governor appointed by the
king, with full authority to bring his immediate predecessor to trial
for his numerous crimes.  Having little to hope from the king's
clemency, Pedrarias resolved to retire into the almost unknown
territory of Nicaragua, and there, with his bandit band, follow to
its final ending the lawless career he had pursued at Darien.  He
sent two of his generals, Fernando de Cordova and De Soto, to prepare
the country for his arrival by suppressing the people and putting
down any usurper who might dispute his authority.  There was one
unique individual, known as Gil Gonzales the fanatic, who had
practically taken possession of Nicaragua, and went about
"converting" its native inhabitants to the religion he and his
fellow-bandits professed, at the head of a hundred followers.  They
were all well mounted and armed.  Their alternative of "receive our
religion or fight" was taken to mean that they desired gold in
exchange for a promise of salvation, so the natives flocked to
Gonzales and were baptized at the rate of thirty thousand a year.
For baptismal fees alone he is said to have {43} received four
hundred thousand dollars, and he was rapidly accumulating a fortune,
when the arrival of De Cordova and De Soto interfered with his plans.
Encountering the latter one night, he engaged him in battle, with the
result that he lost fifty of his best men, though his force
outnumbered De Soto's more than five to one.  Ferdinand fought with
his accustomed valor and energy, never counting the cost of a
conflict, and so impressed the fanatic that he fled from the province
and intrenched himself in the mountains.

There was no other foe to molest them, so De Cordova and De Soto
carried out the instructions of old Pedrarias to the letter, and
founded two towns, Granada and Leon, which, favored with a fertile
soil and charming climate, soon became quite flourishing.  Having
done as he was directed by Pedrarias, De Soto returned to Panama to
report.  The distance was more than four hundred miles, and there
were no roads or beaten paths for the guidance of the traveller; but
the Spaniards of those days thought nothing of obstacles which to-day
might be deemed insuperable.

Finding his irascible patron about to depart from Panama, and the new
governor perilously near, the loyal Ferdinand attached {44} himself
to Pedrarias again and returned with him to Nicaragua.  He was
shocked, however, to discover that the old tyrant had conceived the
idea that his friend, De Cordova, intended to cast off his allegiance
and set up a government of his own.  Captain Bernal Diaz, that
veracious historian of the conquest of Mexico, states it was really
De Cordova's intention to disavow Pedrarias, who was, to all intents,
a fugitive, and ally with Hernando Cortés, then recently arrived in
Honduras, on the northern border of Nicaragua.

However, the mere supposition was enough to excite the frantic
Pedrarias to action.  All the long way to Nicaragua, he was breathing
vengeance against De Cordova, and as soon as he arrived at Leon he
summoned him to appear before him in the public square.  Now, De
Cordova had been warned, not only by letters from De Soto, but by Gil
Gonzales, that unless he successfully resisted Pedrarias he would do
to him as he had done to Balboa--that is, cut off his head.  And this
is what he did, when, relying upon the justice of his cause, poor De
Cordova appeared before him as ordered, unarmed and without soldiers,
in a twinkling the stalwart {45} executioner, who had been concealed
behind Don Pedro's chair, stepped forward and severed his head from
his shoulders.

It was done so quickly that De Soto himself, who had charge of the
soldiers on guard about the square, was taken by surprise.  When he
realized the appalling nature of the crime Pedrarias had committed
before his very eyes, he drew sword and was about to dash forward and
cut down the old man on the spot; but something within restrained
him.  This old man was the father of Isabel, whose memory he sacredly
cherished in his heart, whom he still intended to claim as his bride.
How, then, could he do so if he should be guilty of her father's
death?




{46}

IV

DE SOTO, THE AVENGER

1524-1527

The sword was reluctantly restored to its scabbard; but it was soon
to have a victim, nevertheless.  Hardly had the executioner held the
bleeding head aloft and shouted: "This is the doom of a traitor,"
than Pedrarias issued an order to a file of soldiers, who marched
across the square and closed about De Soto.  They were the most
reliable of the old tyrant's mercenaries, and led by an officer who
had committed many a crime at his behest.

"Seize and drag him hither," cried Pedrarias, pointing at Ferdinand
an accusing finger.  "He, too, is a traitor, false to me and to his
king.  He shall share the penalty we have meted to his comrade."  For
a single instant Ferdinand sat as if petrified.  He had long expected
death at the hands of Pedrarias, but did not believe he would dare
inflict it so openly.

{47}

As the officer reached out to seize his bridle-rein, De Soto
recovered himself.  His good sword leaped from the scabbard, and like
a flash descended upon the officer's helmet, cleaving it and the head
within in twain.  Wrenching it free with a violent effort, De Soto
held the dripping blade aloft, and, putting spurs to his powerful
charger, dashed through the ring of soldiers straight upon Pedrarias.

"Murderer!  Usurper!" he shouted, placing the sword-point at the
trembling tyrant's breast.  "That I do not kill you is because I hold
sacred the memory of one who is not here.  Your death has long been
overdue, but--"  He made as if to sheath his sword, when there arose
cries on every side: "Down with the tyrant!  Kill him!  Kill him!"

"You hear them?  Those are the cries of your soldiers.  They know,
and I know, that the blood of our dead comrade cries aloud for
vengeance--that justice demands your death.  You killed Balboa--a
most dastardly crime--Balboa, who was betrothed to your daughter; and
now you would kill me!  I have served you most faithfully many years,
but henceforth my sword shall never be drawn in your service, not
even to defend your life."

{48}

With these words De Soto turned from the despicable wretch and joined
his troop.  The citizens of Leon and the soldiery gathered around him
and urged that he seize upon the government of Nicaragua, in the name
of the king, promising him their loyal and unwavering support.
Nicaragua lay as a middle ground between Mexico-Guatemala and the
Isthmus.  With such an energetic ruler as De Soto would have made, it
might have become great and powerful; but he put aside this
opportunity and contented himself with exploration merely.

It must be remembered that at the time these occurrences took place
the three Americas, North, Central, and South, were but little known.
Mexico had only just been conquered; Guatemala was being invaded; the
West Indies, alone, had been to any extent explored.  The great
problem that confronted the discoverers was what was termed the
"secret of the strait"--of a passage supposed to exist between the
Caribbean Sea and the Pacific.  Columbus had searched for it vainly;
so had Cortés and others.

We know that it was never discovered, and that the waters of the sea
and the ocean {49} will be blended only after an artificial waterway
shall have been opened through the mountains that separate them at
the narrowest part of the Isthmus.  But De Soto did not know this,
and, believing the solution of the secret to be vastly more important
than the founding or government of a colony, he set himself to the
task.  Choosing a few congenial spirits from his troop, he departed
on an exploring expedition, which resulted in making known more than
seven hundred miles of coast-line.  He solved the secret by
ascertaining that there was no strait; and in exploring it is quite
as important to nail a fallacy as to make a new discovery.  He
returned greatly enriched, from traffic with the natives; and though
this was, so far as can be ascertained, his first accumulation of
gold, he generously shared it with his comrades, not only with those
who went with him, but those of his troop who remained behind.

Pedrarias was still living, and, unfortunately for Nicaragua, still
wielding a semblance of power; so Ferdinand remained in the country
only long enough to set his affairs in order, and started south
again.  His loyal troopers accompanied him, but for what purpose they
returned towards the {50} Isthmus is not exactly known, though it is
conjectured that they were drawn thither by the reports of Pizarro's
great successes in Peru.  They all set out for Panama, taking no
account of the difficulties in the journey; but when some distance on
the way, while marching along the coast, they discovered a vessel,
which De Soto promptly chartered.  Had the master of this vessel
known the character of De Soto and the relation in which he stood to
Pedrarias, he would have refused him passage, to a certainty; but he
paid the penalty of his ignorance with his life.  Hereby hangs a
short story of crime, for the proper development of which we must
turn back a few years in the life of our hero.

It chanced that, in one of his forays, Ferdinand had found captive
among the Indians, and rescued, an Italian astronomer named Micer
Codro.  He was a man of science, unacquainted with war, and went
about looking for and delving into the secrets of nature.  His head
was always "in the stars"; but he valued it highly, just the same,
and was very grateful to De Soto for having rescued him from the
savages.  Being something of an astrologer, he cast his horoscope,
{51} as, some years previously, he had foretold the fate of Balboa.
He informed him that he was ever in peril while with Pedrarias, who
would seek to take his life, as he had taken that of Vasco Nuñez de
Balboa; but he would escape his wiles and live to accomplish the
great aim of his life, which was a union with the one he loved.

"You will be more fortunate than Vasco Nuñez," said the astrologer,
"and will live to the age he attained, which was forty-two, before
death, in a strange manner and in a new land, shall claim you."

"We are all in the keeping of God," replied De Soto, humbly.  "I rely
upon Him to protect me."

Shortly after this conversation took place the artless philosopher,
Micer Codro, was selected by Pedrarias to represent him at the court
of Spain.  He could not trust a man less simple and unworldly than
the astrologer, for fear his crimes might be made known; but, as it
turned out, he was the last person he should have employed, owing to
his friendship for Ferdinand.  When he learned that he was to be sent
to Spain, Codro was overjoyed at the opportunity it gave him to serve
the man who had saved his life.  He {52} hastened to Ferdinand and
said: "I am going to Spain.  I shall see the family of Don Pedro, to
whom I am to be intrusted with letters.  Is there no member of that
family you would like me to carry a message to?  Five years is a long
time, without news of one's beloved, is it not?"

Ferdinand started in astonishment.  "How did you know?" he asked.
"Oh, I forgot--perhaps you learned it of the stars.  Yes, it is five
years since I came here, and during that time not one word.
Sometimes I question whether she has written."

"Nay, do not doubt her, friend.  She has written, but her letters
have been intercepted by her father.  This chance I offer you is the
only one you will have, for I not only go, but I return, and
everything will be wrapped in secrecy."

"But," answered De Soto, doubtfully, "should Don Pedro discover it he
would not hesitate to kill you."

"I fear him not.  If he is to kill me, then it is so written in the
stars.  Prepare your letter, friend, and I will carry it."

Ferdinand raised no more objections, but wrote a letter to Isabel de
Bobadilla, in which he poured forth the pent-up feelings of {53}
those five long years.  It was taken by Micer Codro to Spain, and
delivered in person to the delighted maiden, who responded with an
epistle filled with fervent love and protestations of undying
affection.  She assured her lover that, though she had written him
previously, and received no answer, she knew and appreciated the
cause of that long silence.  She had not for a moment distrusted him,
nor would she ever do so.  She impatiently awaited his return; but
whatever time might elapse before that happy event, she would be
faithful to the end.

Eight years more were to pass before the return of De Soto to Spain,
or fifteen in all, ere he found the fortune which enabled him to go
and claim his bride; but during this long period both were faithful
to each other.  Simple Micer Codro, though he could predict future
events, did not possess the craft to conceal his intentions.  There
were spies about the castle, and spies in Panama, who reported to Don
Pedro everything that had happened, and he knew that Isabel had sent
a letter to her lover almost as soon as Ferdinand had received it.

He said nothing, and kept a smiling face {54} for poor Codro, whom he
rewarded for his services by sending him on an exploring trip down
the coast.  Such an expedition was what the man of science delighted
in, and he embarked most joyfully; but he had not been long aboard
the vessel before he discovered the real nature of the fiendish
governor's intentions.  The craft was a slaver, commanded by a brutal
wretch named Geronimo de Valenzuela, who, carrying out the
instructions he had received from Pedrarias, chained poor Codro to
the main-mast.  There he was kept until he finally died from
exhaustion, exposed to the fierce rays of a tropical sun by day and
the drenching dews of night.  Ten days he was kept thus, all the time
without food or water, and suffering abuse from the heartless crew.
As his end approached he called Valenzuela to him and, with his last
accents, said: "Captain, you have caused my death by your cruelty.  I
now summon you to appear with me, within a year, before the
judgment-seat of God."


The vessel in which De Soto had taken passage worked its way along
the southern coast of Veragua, and late one afternoon arrived off a
group of islands about one hundred {55} miles southwest of Panama,
known as the Zebacos.  They were green and beautiful isles.
Something in their appearance seemed to excite in the captain of the
vessel a spirit of reminiscence.

"Oh ho!" he exclaimed to his mate; "do you remember the last time we
passed Zebacos, and the old wizard we buried there?"

"Sooth, I do," replied the mate; "and, moreover, the year is nearly
up, my captain, so prepare yourself, perchance."

"What is it?" asked one of the soldiers.

A group of De Soto's men had gathered about, and among them was their
commander, who listened carelessly as the master of the vessel gave
the details of a fiendish story.  He was a man of brutal appearance,
whose whole career had been one of wickedness.  His name was Geronimo
de Valenzuela, and he was the same who had tortured poor Codro to
death, though De Soto was not aware of that.  Indeed, he had never
learned what had become of his friend, who had mysteriously
disappeared and left no trace by which his fate could be known.  He
was soon to learn, however, and in a startling manner was to avenge
his death.

"Ye see that island standing up high {56} above the sea, with a
cocoa-palm on its highest part?  Well, there we buried him, the old
wizard who, somehow, had offended Pedrarias.  He had proved
treacherous, I believe, bringing back letters from Spain which Don
Pedro would rather had not been sent.  Whatever it was, he was to
suffer for it, and I had orders to chain him to the mast and keep him
there till he died.  It was not so easy a task, for the old man was
all of ten days in dying, though we helped him along somewhat.  Eh,
mate?"

The captain burst into a roar of brutal laughter, in which he was
joined by such of his crew as were with him when poor Codro was
tortured.  Had they looked up, they would have seen that De Soto was
standing near, with flashing eyes and paling cheek, one hand
convulsively gripping his sword.  But he kept silence, and the fiend
continued:

"Well, towards the last the old man lost his speech; but some time
before he died he recovered and called to me.  'Captain,' he said, 'I
die; you have killed me; but know this: within one year you will
appear with me before the judgment-seat of Almighty God.'

"Oh ho, he spoke like a prophet; but the year is within a week of its
ending, and here {57} am I.  And there is the island where we buried
him.  Now, who can say Don Codro was no liar?"

"I say it," thundered a voice in his ear.  "He was my friend and a
good man, and with this blade I will prove he was no liar."

With one swift and powerful blow De Soto severed the man's head from
his body, and it rolled upon the deck.

"Now come at me, varlets, one or all.  Here stand I, Ferdinand de
Soto, to defend the good name of my friend, to avenge an atrocious
deed, for that friend doubtless died for doing me an inestimable
service."

But not one of those cringing villains made a move towards the
valiant swordsman.  Instead, they slunk away, one by one, overpowered
by the suddenness of the onslaught.  The skill displayed by De Soto,
as well as his courage, elicited their admiration; and though they
murmured among themselves as they cast the captain's remains to the
sharks, they attempted no reprisal.

The date of this incident and the length of De Soto's stay in
Nicaragua are not known.  It is probable that, after his return to
Panama, he lingered so long, in a country already impoverished by the
raids of {58} insatiate Spaniards, who repeatedly ravaged it with
fire, sword, and packs of bloodhounds, that he expended all the gold
he had obtained in Nicaragua.  We know this: that when, after having
reached the frontiers of Peru, and finding himself unable to advance
because of the few men he had with him, Francisco Pizarro sent urgent
calls to Panama for reinforcements, De Soto consented to go to the
rescue.

He had long known Pizarro, from having come in contact with him
during the frequent raids they had made together when in Panama and
Darien, but by no means admired him.  In fact, he heartily despised
him, although he could not but have recognized his soldierly
qualities.  But Pizarro had now obtained the consent of the Spanish
sovereign to the conquest of Peru; he had persisted in his attempt to
reach that country during many years, and was at last on the verge of
success.  He offered great inducements to any cavaliers who would
come to his assistance, and sent a special request to De Soto.

For several years previous to the departure of De Soto for Peru he
and Pedrarias had held no communication.  Don Pedro was consistent
{59} in his cruelties, it is believed, up to the time of his death,
which occurred while De Soto was absent in Peru.  He pursued the
Indians vindictively, using blood-hounds unsparingly and committing
atrocities which called down upon his head the curses of all who
spoke his name.  The natives of Nicaragua were enslaved, and the
survivors of his massacres deprived of their harvests, so that famine
resulted and many thousands perished of a pestilence.

De Soto would not lend himself to the enslavement of the Indians, nor
is his name notably connected with any act of atrocity in Nicaragua
or Panama.  But, in transferring his allegiance from Pedrarias to
Pizarro, he merely passed from the service of one unscrupulous
villain to that of another.  In the interim, however, he had become a
free-lance, and owned no man as his master.  His strength and
prestige enabled him to dictate terms to the Conqueror of Peru, and,
"according to the report of many persons who were there, he
distinguished himself over all the captains and principal personages
present, not only at the seizure of Atabalipa, lord of Peru, and in
carrying the city of Cuzco, but at all other places wheresoever he
went and found resistance."




{60}

V

THE REWARD OF DEVOTION

1532-1538

Having informed ourselves as to the influences which shaped the
character of Ferdinand de Soto, we will now return to the Inca's
court, at which we found our hero in the first chapter of this
biography.  Succeeding to the arrival of Pizarro's army at Cassamarca
and the visit paid the Spaniards by the Inca, Atahuallpa, came the
horrible massacre by which Peruvian affairs were thrown into chaos
and the "Child of the Sun" made a prisoner.

While this atrocious deed was planned by Pizarro, it evidently
received the sanction of his captains, and there is nothing to show
that De Soto disapproved it or did not lend his active assistance.
As commander of the most active troop of cavalry, he probably took a
leading part in the fiendish slaughter of unarmed Peruvians; but, as
he is not {61} mentioned particularly, we may give him the "benefit
of the doubt," and hope, at least, that he did not.  He was assuredly
absent when the massacre was planned, but present when it was carried
into execution.

It does not accord with our conception of him, as obtained through
scanning his deeds in Darien and Nicaragua; but inasmuch as he shared
in the spoils--which he did to a notable extent--he must have
participated in the slaughter.  However this may have been, it is
known that he was the only man in Pizarro's army who was admitted to
the confidence of the captive monarch, and perhaps the only one who
could have saved him from an inglorious death.  It is said that it
was through him that Atahuallpa offered to ransom himself by filling
an immense room with gold and another with silver.

An ardent friendship existed between him and Atahuallpa, who now
regarded the handsome cavalier as his sole reliance.  Pizarro did not
dare attempt the Inca's life while De Soto was by, so he invented the
report that a conspiracy had been formed by the Peruvians to release
their ruler, and sent him off with his troopers to investigate.  The
{62} unsuspicious Ferdinand set out on this toilsome journey as a
mission of love--for it was said that the Inca had incited this
conspiracy, and he was anxious to disprove it.  He was gone several
days, and when he returned the dreadful deed had been committed.

Atahuallpa was dead.  He had been sentenced to be burned at the
stake, on the evening of the very day he went through the semblance
of a trial, in order that he should be put out of the way before De
Soto returned.  Though the sentence of burning had been commuted to
death by strangling, that "he might die a Christian," he had suffered
the extreme penalty.  When led to the stake, and while the fagots
were being piled about him, the hapless Inca looked around for De
Soto.

[Illustration: ATAHUALLPA, INCA OF PERU]

"Oh, where is he, my friend?" he asked.  "It is not like him to
consent to this foul murder.  He can save me, I know.  Why does he
not compel my release?"

When told that De Soto had gone to suppress a conspiracy instigated
by the Inca himself, he groaned, and said no more.  The full extent
of Pizarro's treachery was then apparent to him.  His only friend
with {63} influence had been sent away, in order that he might be
murdered without a protest.

When De Soto arrived at the place at which it was declared by Pizarro
the Inca's followers were assembling, he found everything quiet and
no signs of a disturbance.  A terrible suspicion then took possession
of him, and he hastened back to the city with all speed.  On the way
he learned the truth, and on his arrival at headquarters strode into
the room where Pizarro was sitting, with a slouched hat drawn over
his eyes, in sign of mourning, and fiercely upbraided him for his
perfidy.

"Look up, miserable coward and assassin!" he shouted, drawing his
sword and with its point lifting the hat from Pizarro's head.  "There
was no conspiracy--as you knew.  There was no treachery, except in
your own black heart--which I have a mind to thrust through with this
sword, Francisco Pizarro!"

In this tenor he raved, his indignation blazing forth like a flame;
but to no avail.  The deed was done, and he could not restore the
dead.  It is said that he ended by challenging all the Pizarros to
single combat, and that not one of them dared accept it; but it is
certain that he threatened to {64} resign his commission and leave
Peru at once.  Thinking it over, however, after his wrath had
somewhat cooled, he concluded to remain, at least until Cuzco was
taken.

The entire force of invaders amounted to less than five hundred men,
while the Inca's standing army was ten times that number, and the
people were everywhere rising to avenge the death of their ruler.  To
resign, in those circumstances, would appear the act of a coward, and
De Soto resolved to remain until victory perched upon the Spanish
standards.  Nearly another year, in truth, he remained in Peru, and
when he left it was with the satisfaction of having done his duty, in
the light in which he saw it then.

But it was a sullen and fractious De Soto that went along with the
army when, on a day in September, 1533, it set out for Cuzco, the
former capital of the incas.  He had accomplished the object of his
ambition, and was now wealthy, even beyond the anticipations in which
he had indulged when, as a young adventurer, he first set foot on
American soil.  He was at liberty to return to Spain and claim his
bride, but his keen sense of honor restrained him.

Sullenly, then, he led his troopers over the {65} mountains, taking
as usual the post of danger, and obeying with alacrity the command of
Pizarro to force a perilous pass held and fortified by the Indians.
It was a gloomy defile between precipitous cliffs, and the only
passage was over a narrow stairway cut in solid rock.  Setting the
example to his men, De Soto dismounted and, with his bridle-rein over
one arm, began the perilous ascent.  He had scarcely done so when a
great boulder came rolling down, sent by a troop of howling savages
above.  It bounded over him, as he was sheltered by an intervening
ledge, and cut a ghastly swath through his men, who were toiling
behind.  Several were crushed to death, as well as their horses; but,
though the approaching contest promised to be one with cyclopean
forces, Ferdinand hesitated only long enough to give directions to
clear the pathway of the mangled remains, and hastened on.  The air
was filled with arrows, javelins, lances, hurled by sinewy arms, and
now and again great rocks came thundering down; but still on he
pressed, bowing his head to the storm, the missile-weapons glancing
like hail from his armor.

Gallantly supported by his brave troopers, he gained at last a
plateau on the mountain-top, {66} where, forming his men in battle
array, he charged the Indians and drove them to a distance.  He did
this repeatedly, but, just as often as he returned to the spot he had
fixed upon for a camp, just so often came rolling back the tide of
yelling savages, evidently intent upon forcing him and his men over
the precipices.  The coming of night alone saved the Spaniards from
complete destruction; but they dared not sleep, for ominous noises in
the surrounding forest told them that the desperate Peruvians were
assembling by thousands, determined to make one last effort to save
their capital from invasion.

They had chosen their stand with consummate strategy, and here they
concentrated their warriors, with the intention of destroying the
Spaniards at the coming of the dawn.  They were only prevented from
doing so by the opportune arrival of reinforcements under Almagro,
the partner of Pizarro in this enterprise.  He was in command of a
strong detachment of infantry, which had camped at the foot of the
mountain, unaware of the desperate situation of De Soto.  A courier,
sent by the latter, managed to break through the investing lines and
take to Almagro tidings {67} of the disaster.  Without a moment's
hesitation, the command was set in motion.  It scaled the dizzy
heights in midnight darkness, and gained the plateau, the first
intimation of succor coming to De Soto from Almagro's bugle-blasts,
which echoed through the forest.

Both commanders held a similar detestation of Pizarro, for both had
been wronged by him; yet both were engaged in a common cause against
the foe.  Back to back, with the infantry in the centre and the
mailed chargers presenting a front of steel, they repulsed the
advancing Indians, then in loosened formation opened fire with
cross-bows and arquebuses, while the cavalry charged madly across the
plain.  The slaughter was terrible, and the ground was soon covered
with the slain; but victory was won at great cost to the Spaniards,
many of whom were crushed beneath the blows from ponderous
battle-axes or transfixed with arrows and javelins.

The Peruvians retreated in confusion, and, save for a slight skirmish
a few days later, the Spaniards encountered no further opposition to
their entry into Cuzco, which was accomplished on November 15, 1533.
The battle of the plateau was the first of any {68} importance fought
between Peruvians and the invaders of their country, and it was also
the last in which De Soto was engaged.

In Cuzco the Spaniards found a large amount of treasure, though not
so much as if they had pushed on rapidly, as De Soto had desired to
do after the battle of the pass.  It may have been because Pizarro
was feeling the effects of advancing years, or from an inclination to
allow De Soto to bear the brunt of the attacks, that he lingered by
the way, when the City of the Sun was almost within his grasp.  But
he did so, first in this seductive valley, then in another, until at
last his fiery captain, provoked beyond measure at the delay, which
was unpardonable from a military point of view, burst the slight
bands of restraint which held him, and dashed forward with his
devoted dragoons.

He and they led the advance, from beginning to end of that long
march, as well as fought all the battles.  When the setting sun of
that November day in which the valley of Cuzco was entered glanced
athwart the helms and banners of Pizarro's army descending the
sierras, Ferdinand de Soto might have been seen well in the van.  He
was also the first in Cuzco, and not the last to engage in {69} the
sacking of the city, where the spoils were vast, notwithstanding much
treasure had been taken away and secreted.  Plunder, chiefly gold and
silver, was divided among the common soldiers alone to the amount of
half a million dollars, or above a thousand dollars to each one,
while the officers, all, were made affluent for life, if they could
but keep the treasure they had gained.

There was but one way to do this, and that was to retire at once from
the country where the wealth had been acquired and return to Spain.
To this sensible conclusion came Ferdinand de Soto, and, as his
services were no longer urgently required--as, in fact, Pizarro would
rather be rid of him than have him remain--he resolved to return.
Sometime in the summer of 1534 he bade farewell to his comrades in
arms and, after making the long journey from Cuzco to the coast,
embarked for Spain.  We have no particulars of the final scenes when
De Soto and his faithful troopers parted company.  They had been
together during years of hard service, had encountered dangers, and
run the gantlet of death many times in company, so it came hard, at
the end, to say farewell.  Some of his comrades, in truth, followed
his {70} example and returned in the same ship with him to Spain,
afterwards going with him through Florida.  All were enriched by the
spoils of Peru, and Ferdinand himself took back, according to the old
historian, one hundred and eighty thousand _cruzados_ in gold, or
more than half a million dollars.

Next we see this hero of many battles and numberless skirmishes with
the Indians of America at the court of his sovereign, where he was
received with great distinction, as the most heroic figure, on the
Spanish side, in the conquest of Peru.  The laurels of that conquest
belong by right to Francisco Pizarro, and De Soto manifested no
inclination to snatch them from his brow; but, as the first honorable
man of importance to arrive in Spain from Peru, with his pockets well
lined and his claim to nobility well founded, he became for a while
the observed of all observers.

The king not only received him well, but honored him by accepting a
loan--which, strange to say, he repaid.  "De Soto made his home in
Seville, where he set up in great state, employing a major-domo, or
superintendent of the household, an usher, pages, chamberlain,
footmen, and all other requisites {71} for the establishment of a
gentleman."

And it was not a bachelor establishment, either, that he set up in
that grand old city by the banks of the Guadalquivir, for, some time
after his arrival, he took thither as its mistress none other than
Doña Isabel de Soto, born Bobadilla, second daughter of the infamous
Pedrarias.

The course of true love had not run very smooth with these two
lovers, but it had run a long while, and nobody can with truth deny
that Ferdinand was entitled to his Isabel, having fought for her and
waited for her fifteen long and weary years.  In the end, as all true
lovers will rejoice to learn, he was successful in getting possession
of her hand, having won it years before; but it was only after the
death of Don Pedro, who sought to frustrate his designs by leaving
his second daughter penniless.

The hardened old wretch had died, after lingering long in physical
agony and mental anguish.  His conscience was troubled, not at the
thought of the misery he had caused in this world, but at the
prospect of what he was to receive in the next.  The only reparation
he could make (the priests at his bedside {72} assured him) was a
liberal donation to the Church, and the way in which he did this was
eminently characteristic of the man-fiend Pedrarias.

In his gloomy castle at Badajoz, ever since her father had
assassinated her affianced husband, had lived his eldest daughter,
Maria.  She had remained true to the memory of Balboa, as her sister
had continued faithful to De Soto, and her father rewarded this
constancy by bequeathing her his vast fortune, for the founding of a
nunnery, over which she was to rule as abbess.  Unless she went into
the nunnery, poor Isabel was left at the mercy of the world, without
a centavo to her name; but at this juncture arrived Ferdinand de Soto
from Peru, and she became the wife of a rich and powerful noble and
the envy of her sex throughout all Spain.

Thus far, in narrating the adventures of De Soto, we have followed
the accounts which have seemed most entitled to credence; but all are
not alike, and, indeed, some writers have stated that Ferdinand first
met his wife at court, whither she had gone with her mother, the
widow of Pedrarias.  Also, that, instead of being at feud with her
father, he had lived with him in Nicaragua, without {73} falling out
at all.  Whether this be true or not, most of us would rather believe
that Ferdinand had met his Isabel in youth, and was constant to her
throughout, and that he returned to Spain for the sole purpose of
laying his hard-won fortune at her feet.  Constancy in man is such a
rare jewel, and so seldom discovered, that we cannot refrain from
making the most of that which is said to have sparkled on the breast
of Ferdinand de Soto.

Ferdinand was under forty years of age at the time he settled down in
Seville and became a gentleman of leisure.  As entitled to that
distinction by birth, he was made a knight of Santiago, and felt
bound to sustain the dignities of his position by a large
establishment and vast expenditure.  Within two years his fortune had
been reduced more than one-half, and, having become wearied of
inaction, he cast about for some means of replenishing his coffers
and for a field in which to exercise his energies.

That field seemed to open to him in the then boundless region called
Florida, which was in the main unknown, and extended from the most
northern territory of which the Spaniards had knowledge to the
confines of {74} Mexico.  Though Ponce de Leon had landed on the
coast of Florida in 1513, and eight years later had received his
death-wound in a conflict with Indians there, little was known of the
country until the attempted conquest by Pánfilo de Narvaez in 1527.

This unfortunate Spaniard, who had opposed Cortés in Mexico, where he
lost an eye in the fight at Cempoalla, obtained from Emperor Charles
V. permission to conquer Florida, of which country he was made
_adelantado_, or military governor.  He landed on its eastern coast,
in a large bay open to the sea, with a force of four hundred men and
forty horses.  After crossing the peninsula, and after enduring
incredible hardships, his command, diminished to about one-half its
original strength, launched upon the waters of the gulf, with the
intention of seeking a port of Cuba or Mexico.

The vessels in which Narvaez and his men had sailed to Florida could
not be found, and they constructed rude barks from the wood of native
trees, with nails forged from their bits and bridles, and sails made
from their garments.  They embarked, it is supposed, in the Bay of
St. Marks, and coasted southwardly, occasionally landing and fighting
{75} with the Indians for food to keep them from starvation.  A gale
drove the boat in which was Narvaez out to sea, and he was never
heard of after, while all the rest of his men save four perished
through shipwreck or starvation.  Nine years later, after most
wonderful adventures with various Indian tribes, these four arrived
in Mexico, and in 1537 one of their number, Cabeza de Vaca, met and
conversed with Ferdinand de Soto in Spain.




{76}

VI

ADELANTADO AND GOVERNOR

1538-1539

It was a wonderful story Cabeza de Vaca had to tell, of perils many
and narrow escapes from savage Indians, and as he had been ten years
absent, all the while exposed to danger, it might have been imagined
that he had endured enough.  But no, Alvar Nuño Cabeza de Vaca was of
a piece with the others who had suffered in various parts of the New
World.  As soon as he reached home and friends, and was surrounded
with comforts, he reverted regretfully to the active life he had led
in the unknown country, and thought sorrowfully upon the chances he
had let slip to become the richest man in the world.

As a matter of fact, the worthy Cabeza de Vaca (or Cow's Head, as his
name might be literally rendered) found nothing but hard usage in the
lands he had explored, and {77} returned without even a grain of the
gold with which his imagination filled them.  But the gold was there,
he convinced himself by frequently recalling what the various Indians
had told him; and the air of mystery and reserve which he summoned up
when questioned by friends convinced them, also, that Señor Vaca had
much to reveal--if only he would reveal it!

Especially impressed was De Soto, who, just before the return of Vaca
to Spain, had secured from the emperor all the rights and titles in
Florida which had been vacated by the death of Narvaez.  Emperor
Charles was very generous always--with other peoples' properties--and
had bestowed this same region of Florida--or the conquest of
it--first upon Ponce de Leon, then upon Pánfilo de Narvaez, before he
handed it over to De Soto.  Each one of them had offered to explore
and conquer it at his own expense, and, as this was a consideration
which always had weight with the emperor, each one had been granted
his request as soon as proffered.

Like the foolish explorers before him, Ferdinand de Soto was
"created" by Charles adelantado and governor of Florida, and, in {78}
addition, captain-general of Cuba, which island he desired as a base
of supplies in his projected conquest of the vast and far-stretching
empire which he presumed to exist on the main.  Cabeza de Vaca was
offered a high position under him; but he himself desired a
government of his own, and was given that of the Rio de la Plata, as
a sop for relinquishing a country where he had endured unutterable
privations, and which (it was afterwards hinted) he would not have
accepted on any terms.

De Soto was thenceforth known as the adelantado and the governor;
and, as titles cost the emperor nothing, he also made his favorite a
marquis, bestowing upon him, with magnificent liberality, a
marquisate in Florida, thirty leagues in length and fifteen in
breadth--which was to be won by his sword.

When it became noised abroad that the gallant hero of Peru was about
setting forth on an independent expedition, recruits came flocking in
from every direction, attracted by the splendor and magnificence with
which De Soto was surrounded.  The cavaliers of Spain vied with one
another in securing places of honor, the rich ones pouring out their
{79} money with a lavishness exceeded only by that of their leader
himself, and the poor ones being assisted by him in procuring
extravagant equipments.

One day, as he was about sitting down to dinner, a brilliant band of
Portuguese hidalgos came clattering into the court-yard of his great
house in Seville.  They were superbly mounted and clad in polished
armor.  Descending from the gallery overlooking the court, De Soto
gracefully welcomed them and invited the whole party to dinner,
afterwards sending out his major-domo to secure for them the best
quarters in the city.  Thus the cavaliers gathered around him, and in
the course of a year the equipment was complete.  Nearly a thousand
persons assembled at the port of San Lucar, in April, 1538, whence
sailed De Soto's magnificent expedition, comprised of ten vessels,
large and small.  The governor and his wife, together with their
brilliant retinue, embarked in the San Cristobal, of eight hundred
tons, and the fleet set sail, to the blare of trumpets and amid
salvos of artillery.

Two weeks later the vessels dropped anchor off Gomera, in the Canary
Islands, arriving there on Easter Sunday.  The governor {80} of the
island, the Count of Gomera (wrote one of the Portuguese hidalgos in
this gallant company), "was apparelled all in white--cloak, jerkin,
hose, shoes, and cap--so that he looked like a governor of gypsies.
He received the adelantado with much pleasure, lodging him well, and
the rest with him, gratuitously.  To Doña Isabel he gave a natural
daughter of his to be a waiting-maid," and entertained the entire
company right joyously for a week.

There were twenty-four ecclesiastics aboard ship--monks, priests, and
clerics--and a large number of young nobles sumptuously arrayed, with
silken doublets and cassocks, "silk over silk," and with retinues of
servile attendants.  The _reverendos_ did not seek to mar the
festivities, for they were going out merely to convert the heathen;
while the cavaliers, many of them, devoted themselves to Doña Isabel
and the attractive damsels in her train.

Among them all there was none more beautiful than the daughter of the
Count of Gomera, who was less a "serving-maid" than companion to the
fair Isabel, and who, before the voyage was over, won the heart of a
cavalier named Nuño de Tobar.  He was {81} one of the men who had
returned from Peru with De Soto, his fortune made and the best of his
life still before him.  Tobar went out as lieutenant-general in the
expedition; but when, after arriving in Cuba, De Soto found that he
had been trifling with the affections of the lovely Leonora, daughter
of the count, he was summarily deposed.

Ferdinand and his wife regarded Leonora in the light of a daughter,
having none of their own, and were wounded to the quick by the
ungallant behavior of Tobar.  It is said that De Soto, in addition to
deposing Tobar, challenged him to mortal combat, as having committed
an affront which could only be palliated by the shedding of blood.
As such an encounter, with one whose sword was invincible, was
equivalent to a sentence of execution, the young man begged for
mercy, promising to make every reparation in his power.  His life was
contemptuously granted him; but he never recovered the confidence of
his commander, though he served him long and well.

This untoward incident had not developed, fortunately, before the
arrival of the fleet at Santiago de Cuba, which port was reached at
the end of a month after leaving Gomera, {82} where the new governor
was received with great rejoicings.  The festivities conducted by the
wealthy residents of Santiago lasted nearly a week, and consisted of
bull-fights, horse-racing, and tournaments by day, with banquets,
balls, and theatrical displays by night.  The planters of the island
came into town with numerous fine horses, which they presented to
such cavaliers as were in need of them, and, in fact, to many who had
not, so that some of the noblemen possessed three or four each, all
of them mettlesome chargers, finely caparisoned.

These planters vied with one another in extending hospitalities to
the new arrivals, sending horses and mules for the governor and his
lady, with their suites, to ride out to their estates in the country,
where they were entertained in baronial style.  Among these gentry
there was one Vasco Porcallo, who lived near the town of Trinidad,
having a vast estate, which he had bought with the proceeds of long
years spent in fighting the enemies of Spain.  He had thought to
settle there for life, and had surrounded himself with every luxury
that money could purchase in that lonely island.  But on his visit to
Santiago he met so many kindred spirits and saw so {83} much that
reminded him of his fighting days that he caught the enthusiasm of
the cavaliers and volunteered his services to De Soto, out of hand.
As he had great wealth and a lavish disposition, and, moreover, was
possessed of military skill, De Soto accepted his offer at once.  He
was made lieutenant-general, in place of Tobar, and was so elated
thereby that he showered the army with his gifts.  He gave a vast
amount of provisions to the fleet, and contributed heavily to its
armament, besides presenting to various cavaliers who took his fancy
more than fifty blooded horses.  Thirty-six horses were included in
the outfit he took with him to Florida, and a great number of Indian
and negro servants and slaves.

All Cuba was aflame over the approaching conquest of the peninsula,
which lay but a comparatively short distance away, yet had never been
explored.  Nearly forty years had passed since Columbus discovered
the Bahamas and Cuba, thirty since the latter was circumnavigated,
and twenty-five since its people were subjugated.  Yet Florida, only
a few miles distant across the Gulf Stream, still existed as a
wilderness awaiting the coming of its conqueror.

{84}

Sending his fleet around to Havana, where Doña Isabel was instructed
to await his arrival, De Soto spent three months in a careful
inspection of the island, acquainting himself with its resources and
accumulating supplies for his expedition.  Travelling overland from
Santiago, by the way of Trinidad and Puerto Principe, the governor
arrived at Havana towards the end of August, and there remained
several months, attending to the needs of the people and establishing
his government on a sure foundation.

The commerce of Cuba had risen to such proportions as to attract the
attention of the Caribbean corsairs, who had assailed both Havana and
Santiago; thus much repairing of fortifications and planning of new
ones was necessary, to secure the island from their depredations.

During this while, a small vessel, with a selected crew under Juan de
Añasco, was engaged in cruising the Floridian waters in search of a
harbor commodious enough for the fleet.  This was found, after
several months of dangerous navigating among the shoals and cays of
the Florida Reefs.  Two voyages were made before the end was
attained, and on the second trip the frail {85} craft came near
foundering, for a tempest assailed her, and the crew passed two
months on an uninhabited islet, where their only subsistence
consisted of raw shell-fish and wild fowl which they killed with
stones and clubs.

This venture of Añasco's was the fifth or sixth that had come to
grief on the coast of Florida, and it did not augur well for the next
one.  No one can say, however, that Ferdinand de Soto did not use
great caution and care in opening the way for his expedition, even
though it ended in greater ruin and disaster than any other that had
preceded it in America.

The winter of 1538-1539 passed away, with the cavaliers in Cuba worn
to desperation from lack of employment and sighing for a sight of the
land for which they had set out so many months before.  It was not
until May, 1539, that De Soto finally set his sails for Florida, more
than a year after he had departed from Spain.

Just as he was getting his last supply of sea-stores aboard, in the
harbor of Havana, a ship came into port bearing as its most important
passenger an old comrade of his, Hernan Ponce, with whom he had been
most {86} intimately associated in Peru.  In truth, these two had
formed a sort of partnership, common in those days, by which they had
agreed to share equally all gains, honors, etc., that might be
acquired by either.  Ponce was now on his way to Spain, with a
fortune in gold and gems, which he was by no means willing to share
with De Soto, who, by the terms of their agreement, was entitled to
the half of it.  By the same terms, Ponce was also entitled to his
moiety of De Soto's estate, and, as well, to participate in the
honors which had been showered upon him by his sovereign.

These, indeed, the open-handed De Soto proffered to Ponce; but the
latter professed himself as satisfied, and content to leave matters
as they were.  But his former partner delayed his voyage for the sake
of honoring him, took him to his palace on shore, seated him at his
table, and proclaimed that his ancient comrade, Hernan Ponce, was
henceforth to be addressed as "governor" and to receive the same
attentions as himself.

Still, Señor Ponce was uneasy, for something seemed to prey upon his
mind.  Going aboard his vessel in the harbor, in the dead {87} of
night, he caused several large boxes filled with gems to be taken
ashore, where he had them buried, for fear that De Soto would
discover his wealth and insist upon his share.  But the frank yet
wary Ferdinand had suspected something of the kind, and had stationed
sentinels on the watch, who surprised Señor Ponce at his task, and,
driving him away, bore off the treasure in triumph.  It was taken to
the governor, unknown, of course, to Ponce, who let his troubles be
known, the following day, over the wine at dinner.  De Soto whispered
a word to his major-domo, who went out and soon returned with the
stolen coffers intact.

"Are these your gems?" he asked, indignantly; "and did you bury them
in order to deprive me of my portion?  Take them, then, and as
promptly as possible sail with them to Spain.  My own fortune, my
titles, and my honors I consider also yours, and have executed
writings to that effect.  Even now, I say, will you share with me in
the conquest?"

The humiliated Ponce protested that he desired nothing more than what
he had, and, to show that he held his comrade in esteem, begged that
he be allowed to present Doña {88} Isabel with ten thousand dollars'
worth of gems.  This generous proffer De Soto, with a laugh in his
sleeve, consented to accept, and the gems were duly delivered to the
fair lady.

But there is a sequel to this transaction.  After De Soto had sailed,
and was well on his way to Florida, the wily Ponce demanded his
jewels back, asserting that they had been obtained by fraud.  Doña
Isabel sagely replied that they were in her possession; that Hernan
Ponce owed her husband far more than they were worth, on old debts,
for which he was liable to arrest, and arrested he should be
forthwith.  On receipt of which discouraging information he promptly
departed for Spain.




{89}

VII

THE LANDING IN FLORIDA

1539

De Soto's fleet, in which he sailed from Havana for Florida, on
Sunday, May 18, 1539, consisted of five large vessels, two pinnaces,
and two caravels.  Doña Isabel greatly desired to accompany the
expedition, but was compelled to remain in Cuba as regent.  With her
were left the wives of Nuño de Tobar, of Don Carlos, who had married
a niece of De Soto, and of Baltasar de Gallegos, who had sacrificed a
fine vineyard in Spain in order to gratify his ambition to be a
soldier.

The castle-tower is still pointed out in Havana from the battlements
of which these sorrowing wives waved farewell to the fleet as it
ploughed its way into the open sea.  It was to be a last farewell for
Doña Isabel, who never set eyes on Ferdinand again.  Fifteen years
she had waited for {90} this--to be united, at last, to the chosen
companion of her heart, only to be separated from him, after a short
period of wedded bliss, then to lose him forever.  He sailed away
with that gallant company, and the wilderness swallowed him up.

Thanks to the precautions De Soto had taken, a safe harbor was made
in the great bay of Espíritu Santo, on the west coast of Florida,
which was reached on May 25th.  It is now known as Tampa Bay, and at
present is a flourishing winter resort, between which and Havana
frequent steamers perform the voyage in a few hours, which in De
Soto's time consumed a week.  There were nearly a thousand men in the
expedition, with three hundred and fifty horses, so the debarkation
was a slow and toilsome process, and was not accomplished until the
last of May.

During this time the savages on shore had not been inactive, for they
were alert and vigorous, expert in the use of bow-and-arrows, and
efficient with their war-clubs.  They had watched the progress of the
fleet as it sailed along the coast, as numerous signal-smokes
attested, and by the time it had come to anchor were gathered to
oppose {91} a landing.  But they had not shown themselves, though
lying in ambush in the forest, and the first detachment of soldiers,
about three hundred in number, camped on the beach without taking any
precautions against surprise.

The night air was warm and filled with the fragrance of a thousand
flowers, so the soldiers threw themselves upon the sands and slept,
wherever they could find a couch prepared by nature.  Just before
dawn they were awakened by the war-whoops of the savages, who broke
upon them without other warning, out of the darkness, and wounded
several with their javelins and arrows.  So suddenly aroused, and
attacked by an unseen enemy, the troops were thrown into confusion,
and, instead of making a counter-attack, crowded tumultuously to the
shore.

There was then a hasty buckling-on of armor and grasping of weapons
on board ship, each cavalier being spurred to action by the terrible
tumult ashore.  Into the boats tumbled the doughty warriors, burning
to have a brush with the enemy, and as dawn broke and revealed the
Indians they leaped ashore and charged upon them with great shouts.
Among the foremost of those to the {92} rescue was Lieutenant-General
Porcallo, who seized and mounted the first horse he could find and
led the charge.  He was sustained by seven troopers only; but these
were sufficient to put the savages to flight, and the lusty Porcallo,
having pursued them for quite a distance into the forest, soon
returned to the beach, brandishing his lance and loudly vaunting his
victory.  While in the midst of his boastings, his gallant steed
staggered and fell to the ground stone dead, having been shot through
the ribs by an Indian arrow.  Then the boastings of Porcallo were
louder than ever, and he did not fail to call attention to the fact
that his horse was the first to fall in battle with the pagans, and
his weapon the first to be turned against them.

The Spaniards were astonished at the force with which the arrow that
pierced the horse had been sent, and gathered around to examine the
unfortunate beast.  As to the Indians, says the chronicler of the
expedition, "they are exceedingly ready with their weapons, and so
warlike and nimble that they have no fear at all of infantry; for if
these charge upon them they flee, but when they turn their backs are
soon again upon them.  They avoid nothing more easily than {93} the
flight of an arrow, and as they are continually running about and in
motion, neither arquebuse nor cross-bow can be aimed at them with
effect.  Before a Christian can make a single shot with either, an
Indian will discharge three or four arrows; and he seldom misses his
aim.  Where the arrow meets with no armor, it pierces as deeply as
the shaft from a cross-bow.  Their bows are very perfect, while the
arrows are made of certain canes, like reeds, so heavy and rigid that
when their ends are sharpened they will pass through a shield.  Some
are pointed with the bone of a fish, sharp and like a chisel; others
have a stone, like the point of a diamond."

This testimony as to the bravery of the Floridian savages and the
efficacy of their weapons is very important.  It gives us an idea of
the kind of people De Soto encountered at the outset.  Instead of
finding them less warlike, as he progressed with the invasion, he was
to experience yet greater resistance from the natives of the
interior.  An Indian village was discovered near the shore, but
deserted, at one end of which was a sort of temple, having a wooden
fowl with "gilded eyes" perched upon it, and at the other was the
dwelling of the chief, or {94} cacique.  This dwelling occupied the
summit of a great artificial mound, probably a construction of the
mysterious "mound-builders," who, however, had passed away before the
advent of the Spaniards in America.  A few pearls were found within
the temple, but they were of little value, having been injured by
fire.  De Soto was to find bushels of such pearls later in his
journey, and he looked upon these as promising evidences of the
country's richness.

[Illustration: EARLY INDIAN LIFE]

After the troops and munitions had been landed, the governor took up
his residence in the chief's house, and lodged his soldiers in the
huts that were grouped about the great mound.  This mound, by the
way, is said to exist to-day, and is one of the objects by which the
place of debarkation and the subsequent wanderings of the Spaniards
have been traced.  The forest growth was cleared away "for the
distance of a bow-shot" around the mound and village, and, while the
great camp was being put in order, De Soto sent out messengers to
find the cacique, whose name, an Indian captive told him, was Ucita.
But Ucita was not only wary, he was fierce and crafty.  Moreover, he
was greatly incensed against all Spaniards, {95} on account of a
fiendish act committed by Narvaez when in Florida.  Enraged at some
action of the cacique, he had caused his nose to be cut off, and, not
content with this act of cruelty, he had cast Ucita's poor old mother
to the dogs, to be torn to pieces before his very eyes.

The cacique had sworn vengeance upon every Spaniard who should fall
into his hands, and had already sacrificed several unfortunates who
had been lured ashore by stratagem about twelve years previous to the
arrival of De Soto.  The wife of Narvaez had been left behind in Cuba
when her husband sailed for Florida, and, becoming alarmed at his
long absence, had sent a pinnace with a score of men to get news of
him.  They arrived at Tampa Bay, and, sailing near to shore, saw a
folded paper, evidently a letter, in the cleft end of a reed stuck in
the sands.  The Spaniards naturally supposed this might be a letter
left by Narvaez, before he set out on his disastrous march, and a
boat containing four men was sent ashore to get it.  The moment the
keel struck the sands a horde of savages rushed out from ambush and,
surrounding the men, took them to their village.  At sight of this,
the cowardly crew aboard {96} the pinnace made all haste to sail
away, leaving the miserable captives to their fate, which was a
horrible one, indeed.

The Indians belonged to Ucita's band, and when that savage found
these hated white men in his clutches he resolved to put them to the
torture.  Three of them were shot to death with arrows, their
sufferings being prolonged as much as possible, but the fourth was
stretched upon a wooden frame in the shape of a gridiron over a fire.
He was a young man, hardly eighteen years of age, and came of a noble
family that lived in Seville.  As the cruel flames scorched his skin
he cried out in agony, and the heart of the cacique's daughter was
touched with pity.  She was a comely maiden, much beloved by the
chief, and though his vengeance was far from satisfied he listened to
her entreaties.  He released his captive, and, after directing that
his wounds should be dressed, sent him out to watch the graves in a
cemetery.  It was a lonely spot, in the depths of a forest; but the
youth felt more secure amid the dead, and surrounded by wild beasts,
than in the presence of the chief.  His duty was to prevent the
prowling beasts of prey from robbing the shallow graves of their
contents, and so {97} he was given a bow and arrows, and warned that
if one corpse was removed he should be burned alive.

One night, overcome by weariness, he fell asleep, and was awakened by
the falling of a coffin-lid, only in time to see an animal making off
with the body of a boy, son of a man of consequence in the tribe.
The night was very dark, but he let fly an arrow and shot the beast,
which proved to be a panther, through the heart.  His prowess was
greatly admired by the Indians, and for a time secured him immunity
from harm at the hands of the cacique; but the time came when the
latter determined to carry out the sentence of death, and the captive
was warned by the daughter to fly for protection to a neighboring
chief, named Mocoso.  This cacique was in love with Ucita's daughter,
and for her sake, she assured the youth, he would be welcomed and
sheltered from harm.  He succeeded in reaching Mocoso's territory,
and was warmly received by the chieftain, who soon became greatly
attached to the captive, whom he stoutly defended when Ucita
attempted to regain his prisoner for the purpose of putting him to
death.  He thus incurred the enmity of Cacique Ucita, who leagued his
{98} brother chiefs against him and ravaged his territory, but
without forcing him to give up the young Spaniard.

All these particulars were related to De Soto, who was naturally
desirous of securing the release of a fellow-countryman, and sent a
troop of lancers into Mocoso's country for that purpose.  It happened
that about the same time the young man, whose name was Juan Ortiz,
heard of the arrival of Spaniards in the bay of Espíritu Santo, and
begged his master to allow him to join them.  The generous savage not
only gave his consent, but sent him to the coast with an escort and a
message of welcome to the strangers, saying: "Go to the chieftain of
this great army which has landed on our shores.  Tell him what I have
done for you, and entreat him, in return, not to lay waste my
territory nor do harm to my people.  In setting you free, while you
were in my power, I shall hope to win the favor of your great lord,
whose alliance I would fain secure against the enemies I have made on
your account."

Juan Ortiz and his escort encountered the lancers sent in search of
him as they were emerging from a dense forest, and the meeting is
described by Rodrigo Ranjel, De Soto's {99} secretary, who wrote a
narrative of the expedition, in the manner following: "Towards
sunset, being off their road, because the Indian who was their guide
led them wandering and confused, it pleased God that they [the
troopers] descried at a distance some twenty Indians, painted with a
kind of red ointment that these Indians put on when they go to war or
wish to make a fine appearance.  They wore many feathers and had
their bows and arrows.  And when the Christians ran at them the
Indians fled to a hill, and one of them came forth into the path,
lifting up his voice and saying: 'Sirs, for the love of God and the
holy Mary, slay not me; for I am a Christian like yourselves, and was
born in Seville, and my name is Juan Ortiz.'  The delight of the
Christians was very great, in God's having given them a tongue and a
guide, of which, at that time, they were in great need; and, with
every one very much elated, Baltasar de Gallegos [the commander] and
all the Indians who came with him, returned that night very late to
the camp."

The governor received Juan Ortiz like a son who had been given up for
lost, seated him on his right at table, and ordered that he should be
fully equipped, with fine apparel, {100} the best of armor, and an
excellent horse.  Thenceforth he was one of the most honored men in
the command, and, as he had a good knowledge of the Indian language
as spoken in Florida, he became invaluable as an interpreter.


The numerical strength of De Soto's army in Florida is variously
given, as follows: "A thousand men and 350 horses," Theodore Irving;
the same, J.S.C. Abbott; "570 men, 223 horses," J.G. Shea; "nearly a
thousand," Rev. E.E. Hale; "_mil hombres_" (1000 men), Cronau,
Spanish edition; "600," _Encyclopædia Britannica_, _Chambers'
Encyclopædia_, and Hakluyt; "570 men, not including the
sailors"--fully 700, Ranjel and the Fidalgo; "620 men, 223 horses,"
Biedma.




{101}

VIII

IN THE FLORIDIAN FORESTS

1539

Ferdinand De Soto himself wrote, respecting the acquisition of Juan
Ortiz: "We rejoice no little over this interpreter, for he speaks the
language; and although he had forgotten his own, yet it returned to
him....  He puts a new life into us, in affording the means of our
understanding these people, for without him I know not what would
become of us.  Glory be to God, who by His goodness has directed all,
so that it appears as if He had taken this enterprise in His especial
keeping!"

This letter of De Soto's was written July 9, 1539, at the port of
Espíritu Santo, to the magistrates whom he had left in charge of
affairs in Cuba.  In it, also, he makes mention of what little
information had been obtained, through Juan Ortiz, respecting the
inland region which he purposed to explore: {102} "There is a town
called Ocalla, where is an abundance of fowl, a multitude of turkeys,
kept in pens, and herds of tame deer that are tended.  What this
means I do not understand, unless they be cattle, of which we brought
the knowledge with us.  He says, also, there are many trades among
that people, an abundance of gold and silver, and many pearls.  May
it please God that this be so; for of what these Indians say I
believe nothing but what I see; although they know, and have it for a
saying, that if they lie to me it will cost them their lives!"

We thus have a pen-picture of De Soto at this time, sketched by
himself.  We find him, at the outset of this great adventure,
disposed to be just towards the Indians, but at the same time
inclined to exact of them the "pound of flesh," even though their
lives be sacrificed.  Oviedo the historian says that he "was much
given to the sport of slaying Indians, from the time that he went on
military expeditions with the governor, Pedrarias Davila, in the
provinces of Castilla del Oro and of Nicaragua"; but, if what we have
been able to discover is true, he was not greatly given to this
"sport" previous to the year 1540.  As he became entangled in the
{103} morasses of Florida, with faint prospect of emerging with
either the gold he sought or the honors he hoped to gain, his
disposition grew morose.  Such Indians as then fell into his hands
fared badly.

It was, doubtless, gold that De Soto craved above all other things;
but he had no assurance, either in what had been revealed by Narvaez
or by information obtained from Juan Ortiz, that gold existed in the
country.  Pearls there were, said honest Juan, but no gold, so far as
his knowledge went.  Yet, with the gaining of gold as his object,
Ferdinand de Soto set out from Espíritu Santo on one of the most
desperate and protracted wanderings known to history.  Sending his
largest vessels back to Havana, and retaining only two brigantines
and a caravel for coast service, thus cutting off all hopes of a
speedy return that might be indulged in by his men, the governor
struck inland from the great bay about the middle of July.  He had
not found the region roundabout sufficiently fertile for a
settlement, so he took with him on the march a drove of three hundred
hogs, which had been intended for the settlers, and nearly all the
horses.  A valiant veteran, Pedro Calderon, {104} was left as
commander of the port, and with him thirty cavalry and seventy
infantry, provisioned for two years.

De Soto gave the order and the irregular columns were soon in motion,
the cavalry in advance, the infantry bringing up the rear, with the
drove of swine straggling along in charge of herders specially
detailed for the purpose.  This herd of swine was regarded as the
mainstay of the army, in case starvation should threaten; but was to
be reserved to the last, as a nucleus for the colony's livestock.

No more brilliant pageant has ever been seen in Florida than this
assemblage of mailed knights and footmen, with shining helms,
prancing steeds, flaunting banners, and glistening weapons.  It was a
company such as might have been gathered for assault upon Moorish
castle, citadel of Saracen, or pilgrimage to holy shrines.  Every man
was a crusader, yet every soldier was bent upon acquiring wealth
enough to enable him to retire to Spain and lead a life of luxury.

The trumpets sounded, their blasts echoing through the forests of
pine and over the broad savannas where flocked the cranes and
curlews.  The expedition had started, that {105} much-vaunted
enterprise upon which De Soto had lavished all his wealth, and for
the return of which his good wife was to look long years in vain.  It
began with a misadventure, in which figured conspicuously that
fantastic rival of the "Knight of La Mancha," Vasco Porcallo de
Figueroa.

Word came to De Soto that the cacique Ucita was concealed in a swamp
not far distant and near the line of march.  Having used all his
endeavors to induce him to come in, the governor was not disposed to
give the chieftain further thought; but old Porcallo insisted that he
should be captured and rebuked, if not punished, for his lack of
courtesy.  He insisted, also, that he was the man to effect that
capture, and, to humor him, De Soto placed a troop of horse at his
disposal.

"Ah, ha, now we shall see!" shouted the old cavalier as he rode down
the lines, with the troopers clattering at his heels.  "Do you go on,
señor governor, and I will soon join you with that caitiff savage a
prisoner, or his head on a pole."

"Do him no harm, unless strictly in defence," was De Soto's answer.
"We do not wish to war upon the natives, especially at the beginning
of our march."

{106}

"I know," rejoined Porcallo, and he was off at a gallop, his horse
tearing through the forest at so swift a pace that soon the cacique's
stronghold was in view.  It was a vast and dismal swamp, in the
centre of which was an island covered with "hammock" growth, matted
together with vines.  An Indian messenger met Porcallo, warning him
of the difficulties and dangers in the way, but the old knight merely
scoffed.

"Come on, my merry men!" he shouted to his escort.  "We have him
securely trapped.  It is only to go in and fetch him out."  So
saying, he put spurs to his horse--and found himself bogged in a
quagmire.

He fumed and swore, he called on all the saints, and then he called
on his soldiers; but the former did not respond and the latter could
not reach him.  The weight of his heavy armor caused his struggling
beast to sink deeper and deeper into the mire, until he was actually
in danger of suffocation.  At last, by a mighty effort, he extricated
himself from his dangerous position and reached firm ground once
more.  But he was covered with mud from head to foot.  His shining
armor and the splendid accoutrements of his steed were bespattered,
and he made such a {107} sorry spectacle that the soldiers were
convulsed with merriment.  Spanish gravity is a thing not easily
upset, but in this instance the soldiers threw all restraint to the
winds and gave vent to derisive shouts and laughter.  Their taunts
were more than the vain Porcallo could endure, and the instant he
rejoined De Soto he resigned his commission and left the office of
lieutenant-general once more vacant.

Old Porcallo was vain, and his motive in joining the
expedition--which was said to be the hope of getting slaves for his
plantations--was ignoble; but he was generous to the last.  Before
embarking for Cuba he gave away all his horses, accoutrements, and
munitions, and bestowed upon the army his vast supply of provisions,
reserving only enough to last him the voyage.  Even at this cost, as
the sequel will show, he bought his freedom cheaply; and though he
retired because of pique, he afterwards had great reason to rejoice
at the disaster which, for a time, covered him with shame and
confusion.

Beyond the province of Mocoso lay that of Paracoxi, who was a wary
savage, and had learned by sad experience that the Spaniards could
not be trusted.  As Narvaez had {108} passed his way--as was
ascertained by finding the remains of a bridge he had built--it is
probable that the savage had suffered severely, and he could not be
induced to emerge from his retreat, which was in the midst of a vast
morass.  Indeed, the whole country was of this character, apparently,
from a point three leagues beyond Paracoxi's deserted village, and
the army was three days in traversing a swamp which lay between it
and the firm land of a rolling prairie.  While involved in the
darkness of this dismal swamp, lurking Indians, probably some of
Paracoxi's band, annoyed the soldiers exceedingly by discharging
arrows at them from their hiding-places.  Some were killed, some were
captured, and an attempt was made to use the prisoners as guides.
Finding, however, that they were prone to lead them into ambush, the
Spaniards let loose their dogs upon them, who killed four, by tearing
them to pieces.

This is the first act of deliberate cruelty which we can fasten upon
the soldiers of De Soto in Florida; but this mode of inflicting death
was not unusual with the Spaniards, who thereby killed their
prisoners without waste of ammunition.  Alarmed at the penalty {109}
which his companions had paid for their treachery, another Indian
offered to guide the army to dry land; but before it was reached a
stretch of water was entered which came up to the saddles of the
cavalry and the shoulders of the infantry.  It was a league in
breadth and, in the centre, too deep to be forded.  Here were
discovered the remains of the bridge Narvaez had built years before.
Two trees had been felled, one each side of the stream, and the
intervening space filled by logs tied together and floored with poles.

This rude structure reminded De Soto of the aerial hammock bridges,
made of vines, which he had seen and often crossed in Peru; and, to
encourage his men, he told them that the difficulties here were as
nothing compared with what he had encountered on the march to Cuzco.
He detailed the most expert swimmers, with hatchets, to repair the
bridge; but while they were at work they were frequently molested by
Indians in canoes, and two of them severely wounded.

This difficult waterway is supposed to have been near the headwaters
of the Hillsboro River or on the Ouithlacoochee.  Beyond it, several
miles, lay a beautiful prairie, covered with fields of maize; and as
the soldiers {110} had been for days subsisting upon watercresses,
they greedily ate the young corn in the ear, as they stripped it from
the stalk.  Difficult and dangerous as this passage of the swamp had
been, De Soto was obliged to send a courier back, through a country
swarming with excited savages, to summon the remainder of the army,
which had stayed behind under command of Lieutenant Luis de Moscoso.
Two young men, Sylvestre and Lopez, were selected for this perilous
enterprise, and they accomplished it only by riding night and day,
following the trail by the sagacity of their horses, who picked it up
like dogs on the scent.  During three days and nights, these gallant
steeds were hardly unsaddled and rarely unbridled, their riders
sleeping in the saddle or standing by their heads as they snatched a
bite of grass.  At the perilous ford they found the Indians waiting
for them in canoes, but they dashed through the water at speed, amid
such a shower of darts and arrows that, looking back, they saw the
surface covered, as with leaves that had fallen from the trees.
Relays of Indians pursued them to the very vicinity of Moscoso's
camp, and, hearing their cries, a rescue party dashed out, led by
Nuño {111} de Tobar, on a dapple-gray horse that became as famous as
his rider.

On the march to reinforce De Soto, it seemed to the soldiers that the
entire country had roused itself to repel the invaders, for they were
beset by Indians on every side, by night and by day.  Still, they
suffered very little from the missiles of the savages, who shouted
continually: "Keep on, robbers and murderers!  In Apalachee you will
get what you deserve!  No quarter will be given to captives, who will
be hung on the highest trees along the trail!"

They found the governor encamped in a land of plenty, but at odds
with the cacique, who, when invited to a friendly chat, had sent
word: "I am a king in my own land; but, what is your employment?  Why
are you here?  I know, for others of your accursed race have been
here.  It is to wander about like vagabonds; to rob the poor, murder
the defenceless.  No, with such as you I want no friendship.  War
only, and never-ending, shall be waged against the invaders of our
soil!"




{112}

IX

BATTLES WITH THE INDIANS

1539

All the narratives of this expedition agree that up to this point De
Soto had treated the Indians with great consideration.  Three of the
four caciques whose territory he had passed through had held aloof
and refused to have aught to do with him.  They had refrained from
attacking the Spaniards, probably, on account of their weakness; but
the fifth cacique, Acuera, the same who had sent his defiance to De
Soto, enforced his remarks by frequent assaults upon the invaders.
His warriors lurked in ambuscade about the camps, and not only shot
all stragglers with their arrows, but dragged away and beheaded their
victims before they could be recovered by their comrades.

Their vindictiveness was such that they even dug up their bodies,
marking the graves in the daytime and returning to perform {113}
their ghoulish work at night.  These remains of gallant soldiers were
then cut up and hung on the highest trees, while their heads were
borne upon poles, as gory tokens of their triumph.  The Spaniards
retaliated, of course, and most cruelly; but, with their utmost
efforts, they did not succeed in killing more than fifty Indians of
Acuera's band.  They scurried through his province with such
expedition that little injury was done to fields of growing grain or
to villages; so that Acuera might truly boast that he had
accomplished something by his aggressiveness.

He was a type of the Indians generally encountered by De Soto in
Florida, which were vastly different from those he had assisted in
harrying in Darien and Peru.  Except for their lower grade of
civilization, they more resembled the Aztecs of Mexico than any other
natives the Spaniards had met and subjugated.  They opposed the
foreigners from the first, encountering Ponce de Leon at the coast,
resisting the aggressions of Pánfilo de Narvaez, and have left behind
them a prestige fully sustained by the fierce Yemassees and
Seminoles, who, three hundred years later, fought our armies in the
Everglades.

{114}

De Soto's scouts had brought him welcome information respecting the
adjoining province of Ocali: that it was filled with fields of maize
and dotted with prosperous farmsteads, while its forests were
abundantly supplied with game, such as bear, deer, and wild turkeys.
It was called Ocali, after the principal chief, whose town contained
at least six hundred dwellings.  When De Soto arrived, however, these
dwellings were all found deserted, for the people had seized their
portable effects and fled with them to the forests.  But there was
much that they could not carry away, and for a while the Spaniards
revelled in an abundance of green corn fresh from the stalk, wild
fruits, and cultivated vegetables.

Their supplies had been by this time entirely exhausted, excepting
those they had taken along "on the hoof"--the three hundred
swine--which, with infinite labor, they had saved for the colony that
the governor still hoped to found in the wilderness.  The thoughts of
the soldiers were fixed on other things than colonizing, it is true,
and the more they saw of Florida the less their desire to settle
there.  They would fain have turned about and made the best of their
way {115} out of this dreadful peninsula, half water and half sand;
but the governor's pride forbade such a step.  Nothing more promising
had as yet been found than Ocali, which in itself was but a miserable
village, with no architectural pretensions, and without even the
glamour of gold about it.

From motives of policy, De Soto endeavored to establish communication
with the fugitive chieftain, Ocali, but was unable for a long time to
draw him out of his retreat in the depths of the swamps.  At last,
one day, four young warriors appeared.  They were nearly naked, but
their heads were adorned with heron plumes, and in their hands the
ever-present bows and arrows.  Received by the governor with great
cordiality, they sat down to a bountiful collation, of which they
partook with avidity.  Suddenly, without a word or motion of warning,
all four rose to their feet and set off so fleetly that in a moment
they were nearly out of sight.

Taken completely by surprise, the Spaniards would undoubtedly have
allowed them to escape; but they were pursued and overtaken by a
blood-hound, which pulled them to the ground, one after the other,
and then stood over them, barking furiously, so that {116} they were
absolutely terrified into submission.  After having been secured by
the Spaniards and taken to camp, they were questioned as to their
mysterious behavior, but would only admit that they had acted without
any other intention than to show their agility and fleetness of foot.
They had wonderingly admired the costumes, arms, armor, and horses of
the strangers, and in their artless simplicity had thought to exhibit
some accomplishment of their own.

The blood-hound that had effected their capture was a beast of
uncommon sagacity.  Only a short time before he had torn to pieces an
Indian who had merely struck a Spaniard with his bow.  Having done
this, the Indian had leaped into a river, on the bank of which he
stood, followed by several companions.  The hound leaped in after
them, and, passing by all the others, seized the culprit by the
shoulder and destroyed him before their eyes.

Not long after the episode first related, as De Soto and his
body-guard were walking along the bank of a wide river near the camp,
a number of Indians suddenly appeared on the opposite bank and
discharged a flight of arrows into their midst.  It chanced that
{117} the blood-hound spoken of was a short distance behind the
company, held in leash by a keeper, with whom he struggled so
desperately that he finally broke loose.  Plunging into the river,
the ferocious brute sought to swim across and reach the Indians, who
greeted his approach with loud yells and a volley of arrows.  So many
of these missiles struck him in the head and shoulders that he
looked, it is said, like a veritable porcupine; but he valiantly kept
on until the opposite bank was reached, when he fell dead from loss
of blood.  The savages were overjoyed at the destruction of this most
formidable enemy, and, after a parting volley of arrows at the
governor and his party, dragged its carcass away as a trophy of their
valor.  This event greatly depressed the army, for the hound was
considered equal to a score of sentinels for night duty, being always
alert when savages were prowling about the camp, and able to discover
an Indian by his sense of smell.

The cacique Ocali finally emerged from his retreat and held a
conference with the governor; but he was found to be without any
influence whatever, so was allowed to depart, which he did with
alacrity, {118} promising to return and assist the Spaniards in
building a bridge across the river.  Needless to say, perhaps, he did
not honor them with his presence thereafter, and the bridge was built
without his aid.  The country beyond was open pine-woods, through
which the army passed rapidly, with De Soto, as usual, in the lead.
After a three-days' march, he took with him two hundred horse and
foot, and, pushing ahead in the night, at daybreak entered an Indian
town known as Ochile, in the province of Vitachuco, which was under
the dominion of three brothers.

De Soto always aimed to get possession of the cacique, or chief, of
whatever tribe he encountered, to hold as a hostage for the good
behavior of his people.  Fearing that the cacique of Ochile might
take alarm and escape, he approached the village by stealth, and at
dawn clattered into it with clamor of trumpet and drum, so alarming
the natives that they poured forth from their huts like bees from a
hive.  They found themselves prisoners, being surrounded by the
strange warriors, who had descended upon them as if from the skies,
and offered no resistance.

The house of the cacique was the largest of any mansion yet seen in
Florida, being {119} nearly three hundred feet in length by more than
one hundred in breadth, though constructed of logs and thatched with
leaves and grass.  Within it was the chief, as well as his principal
warriors, who at first offered resistance, but were finally prevailed
upon to surrender when the Spaniards threatened to set fire to the
thatch.  Received most graciously by De Soto, who explained the
necessity, which he deprecated, for retaining him a nominal prisoner,
the cacique of Ochile was won over at once.  He seemed disposed to
regard his captors as celestial visitors, and sent for a younger
brother, who, like himself, governed a portion of Vitachuco province.
Between them they controlled one-half the province, but the other
half was ruled by an elder brother, who was made of sterner stuff
than they, and vastly more sagacious.  These two kissed the
governor's hands, and their subjects remained passive, while De Soto
sent back couriers with orders for the main army to come up.  They
were so friendly that the Spaniards greatly rejoiced; for hitherto,
says the Portuguese chronicler, "No one had been able to get servants
who could make his bread; and the method being to beat out the maize
in log mortars {120} with a one-handed pestle of wood (some also
sifting the flour afterwards through their shirts of mail), the
process was found so laborious that many, rather than crush the
grain, chose to eat it parched and sodden."

From this it will be readily understood that the Spaniards gladly
accepted the cacique's offer to supply them with cooks and porters,
so long as they should remain in his country.  He became alarmed,
however, when they settled down around his village and in his fields,
like a host of devouring locusts, and one day he broke loose from his
guard in an attempt to escape.  Some others were with him, who
hastily formed a sort of body-guard, and all together started for the
woods.  Then "the governor ordered a blood-hound, _already fleshed
upon him_, to be let loose, which, passing by many, seized upon the
faithless cacique, and held him until the Christians came up."

Convinced that resistance was useless and that the Spaniards were
invincible, this cacique of Ochile united with his younger brother in
a petition to the eldest and most powerful of the three, begging him
not to resist the advance of the strangers through his territory, but
to submit as they had done.  {121} This cacique was known as
Vitachuco, or Uitachuco, his name, as the most powerful lord, being
also that of the province.  At first he treated their envoys with
silent contempt, but finally, goaded to wrath by their urgency, he
retorted (in the language of Garcilaso de la Vega): "It is evident
that you are young, and have neither judgment nor experience, or you
would never speak as you have done of these hated white men.  The
chains which they have hung upon you, and the mean and dastardly
spirit which you have acquired during the short period you have been
their slaves, have caused you to speak like women.  Do you not
remember that these strangers can be no better than those who
formerly committed so many cruelties in our country?  Do not their
manner of life and actions prove them to be children of the Spirit of
Evil, and not of the sun and the moon, our gods?

"Go they not from land to land, plundering and destroying, and, like
the vagabonds they are, maintaining themselves by the sweat and blood
of others?  Warn them, then, not to enter my dominions; for I vow
that, valiant and powerful as they may be, if they dare do so they
shall never go out {122} alive.  Yea, the whole race will I
exterminate!"

This vainglorious message was accepted by De Soto as mere bravado;
but, whether the cacique could enforce his threats or not, he surely
meant them, as the sequel proved.  He pretended, however, to be won
over by his brothers, who in person went to him and entreated his
submission.  They returned in triumph, assuring the governor that
their brother would receive him as a distinguished guest, provision
his army, and entertain them all to the best of his ability.  He was
convinced, they said, that he had misjudged their character, and
desired to make amends.  As the most powerful chieftain south of the
Apalachee country, he felt piqued that the Spaniards should not have
perceived his greatness, and, in order to impress them properly, had
arranged for a review of his army, which was the largest and
best-appointed in the peninsula.

Setting out from Ochile in the morning, before night the Spaniards
arrived at Vitachuco's town, which consisted of more than two hundred
houses, some of them fortified with palisados.  The settlement was
seated in the centre of a vast and fertile prairie, {123} supposed to
be that which is now known as Wacahauta, to the west of Micanopy,
locally famous in the annals of Florida.  Five hundred warriors
accompanied Vitachuco when he went out to meet De Soto, and the
latter could not but remark that they were the finest he had met,
being tall and stalwart, painted, plumed, and armed in a superior
manner.

A week of feasting and rejoicing followed, during which the Spaniards
became convinced of the cacique's amicable intentions, and grew
careless.  This refers to the rank and file; for their commander
never relaxed his vigilance when in an enemy's country, and still
insisted upon patrols and sentinels, as usual.  Neither was he
surprised when, one evening, Juan Ortiz came to him with information
of a plot which Vitachuco had formed to bring about the destruction
of the army.  Ten thousand warriors were to be assembled on the
plain, weaponless but in battle array, in order that the Spaniards
might be convinced of the formidable forces which the cacique could
put in the field when occasion demanded.  Their weapons, however,
were to be concealed in the grass and thickets, and at a signal they
were to close in upon the strangers and commence the {124} massacre.
Being ten to one, the cacique reasoned, they could easily overpower
and destroy the Spaniards, who would probably be wandering about in
careless security.  De Soto was to be taken in hand by the cacique
himself, who, with twelve of his stoutest warriors, was to accompany
the leader of the Spaniards as he went out to view the spectacle.
When the signal should be given, these warriors were to rush upon and
overpower the governor, and the ten thousand were to grasp their arms
and fall upon the army, with all the fury of savages inspired by
confidence in their numbers.

"It is a very pretty plot," declared De Soto, admiringly, at a
council of his captains that evening.  "And, my sons, I think we
cannot do better than adopt the enemy's tactics.  I will take with me
twelve stout soldiers, to offset the cacique's dozen; and as to the
rest--why, I never knew my men to fail me yet."

Nor did they fail.  On the beautiful morn of the morrow, when Cacique
Vitachuco came to inform his guest that the entertainment was ready
and invite him to view it, he was much surprised and taken aback to
be informed that, in order not to seem remiss, {125} the Spaniards
themselves had decided to have a mock battle, for the diversion of
their Indian allies.

Though deeply chagrined, the cacique dared make no remonstrance, and
was compelled to witness the marshalling of his opponents in full
force and in battle array on the opposite side of the plain.

Civilization and barbarism were fairly and squarely opposed.  The
latter was superior in point of numbers, but the former in discipline
and armament.  Between the two bodies of soldiers strode the chiefs,
accompanied by their body-guards.  As they were about to ascend the
knoll from which the sham contests were to be viewed, a war-whoop and
a bugle-blast rang out at the same instant.  The attendants of each
commander were immediately locked in a death-struggle; the warriors
sprang to arms; the Spanish soldiers came thundering down the plain,
the cavalry in advance, and shouting the old battle-cry, "Santiago!"

De Soto's war-horse was led up to him by a page, and mounting it he
placed himself at the head of his troops.  Four Indian arrows pierced
the noble beast, and he fell dead in his tracks.  Another was
instantly brought, {126} and, in the saddle again, the gallant leader
bore down upon the Indians like an avalanche.  Before the onset of
those three hundred chargers encased in armor the naked Indians went
down like sheep on a mountain-side before a loosened bowlder.  They
were fierce and valorous; but, though ten thousand in number, they
could not withstand the cavalry and the arquebuses.

On one side the plain was a large lake, on the other a dense forest,
where the Indians had concealed their weapons.  Such as did not reach
the forest, in their wild struggle to escape, cast themselves into
the lake, to the number of several hundred.  They swam out into deep
water, and in groups of five or six, with the best archer mounted on
the backs of his companions, kept up the unequal struggle all day
long.  Their arrows, though sent with good will, were impotent
against the mailed soldiers, and when they attempted to regain the
shore the cavalry would rush into the water and drive them back
again.  Daylight waned, and found them fighting yet, but by midnight
some came in and surrendered, though the most intrepid remained till
next day at dawn.

"At four o'clock in the morning," says an {127} eye-witness of this
affair, "they had all surrendered, save twelve of the principal men,
who, as of more distinction and valiant than the rest, preferred to
die rather than yield.  Then the Indians of Paracoxi, who were going
about unshackled, went in after them, swimming, and pulled them out
by the hair.  They were all put in chains, and, on the day following,
were divided among the Christians for their service."

The cacique Vitachuco was caught in his own trap.  At the beginning
of the battle he had been overpowered and borne off to the Spanish
camp, where, after having been put in chains, he was allowed unusual
liberties.  He was given a seat at the governor's table, and, except
for his chains, was treated with the deference to which his rank
entitled him.  But he was implacable, and, though De Soto did all in
his power to gain the friendship of his ferocious captive, he was
bent upon revenge.  He concerted another conspiracy, and one day,
while seated at dinner, gave De Soto such a blow in the face that
several teeth were broken and the blood gushed from his nose and
mouth.  As he sank to the floor insensible, the cacique leaped upon
and was about to finish him, when a dozen {128} swords and lances
were thrust through his body, and he fell dead.  The story of what
followed, after the signal was thus given for the uprising, seems so
improbable that we prefer the old chronicler should tell it.

"The Indians all rose together," he says.  "He who could only catch
up a pestle from a mortar, as well as he who could grasp a weapon,
equally exerted himself to kill his master or the first one he met;
and he whose fortune it was to light upon a lance or a sword, handled
it in a manner as though he had been accustomed to use it all his
days.

"One Indian, in the public yard of the town, with blade in hand,
fought like a bull in the arena, until the halberdiers of the
governor, arriving, put an end to him.  Another got up, with a lance,
into a maize-crib, made of cane (called by Indians _barbacoa_), and
defended the entrance with the uproar of ten men, until he was
stricken down with a battle-axe.  They who were subdued may have been
in all two hundred men.  Some of the youngest the governor gave to
those who had good chains; all the rest were ordered to execution,
and, being bound to a post in the middle of the town yard, they were
shot to death with arrows by the people of Paracoxi."




{129}

X

THE FIERCE APALACHEES

1539

Such a terrible blow had De Soto received that he lay half an hour
unconscious, while the conflict raged around him.  His face was
battered in as though it had been struck by a sledge-hammer, and,
having lost several teeth, he could eat no solid food for many a day
thereafter.  Nearly a week passed by before he and his wounded
comrades were well enough to resume their wanderings, when the march
was taken up for a province known as Osachile.

The Spaniards left behind them a land of desolation, for, besides
Vitachuco and his chieftains, thirteen hundred warriors had been
killed in the battles and massacres.  When the town in which he had
resided was revisited, some time after, it was found abandoned,
without an inhabitant, because of an Indian superstition that it was
{130} accursed.  The invaders had good cause to remember it, for few
of them had escaped scatheless in that savage uprising.  Several had
been killed, many there were with broken arms, scalded skins, and
bruised bodies, so that they went limping away, with many a
malediction on their lips.

Their first day's march brought them to a rapid-flowing river,
believed to have been the Suwanee, across which they attempted to
throw a bridge, as it was too deep to ford.  But the sudden
appearance of hostile Indians in considerable numbers forced them to
abandon this undertaking and hastily construct several rafts, upon
which the soldiers crossed, while the horses were driven into the
river and compelled to swim.  The intrepid troopers caught their
steeds as they emerged from the water on the farther bank, and,
quickly slipping on saddles and bridles, charged upon the savages,
who were put to flight.  They soon returned, however, and greatly
annoyed the Spaniards by discharges of arrows from the corn fields
through which they held their course.  Many were wounded, though none
was killed, and such of the Indians as were taken prisoners had
chains placed about their {131} necks and were forced to serve as
carriers.

Nearly all the slaves and porters had been slain in the massacre,
when the exasperated Spaniards had wreaked their vengeance upon all
alike.  These new prisoners were as intractable as the others, and
though they were "led off in chains, with collars about the neck,"
they sometimes managed to escape.  "Sometimes it happened," says the
old chronicler, "that, going with them for wood or maize, they would
kill the Christian and flee, with the chain on, which others would
file at night with a splinter of stone in the place of iron; at which
work, when they were caught, they were punished, as a warning to
others.  The women and youths, when removed a hundred leagues from
their country, no longer cared, and were taken along loose, doing the
work, and in a very little time learning the Spanish language."

The town of Osachile, which was less than fifty miles from the last
they had left, the Spaniards found to consist of about two hundred
houses, and to occupy the centre of a fertile prairie covered with
fields of maize and pumpkins.  Most authorities agree that Osachile
may have occupied the site of the {132} present Suwanee Old Town, and
the name is perhaps perpetuated by that of the river Oscilla.  It was
found deserted, all the inhabitants having fled, taking with them
their portable possessions; but this fact did not disturb the
Spaniards, who thus secured shelters already constructed and fields
well tilled, which they could avail of without any fighting.  Here in
Osachile, as at Tampa, the cacique's house was set upon an artificial
mound, the summit of which was large enough to accommodate a group of
twenty wigwams, and was reached by an inclined roadway twenty feet in
width.  It was pyramidal in shape, and, though wholly of earth, much
resembled the stone structures of Mexico, such as Papantla, in the
province of Vera Cruz.

Though the governor would have been glad to have a short respite, as
his wounds were healing but slowly, he did not tarry long at
Osachile, for ahead of him lay the wonderful country of Apalachee,
which was said to abound in gold.  It was also the home (according to
the southern Indians) of the fiercest warriors in Florida, who had
never been defeated in battle, and who never allowed their land to be
invaded.  An Apalachee {133} scout had been captured, after holding
at bay a score of soldiers for hours.  Severely wounded as he was,
and in chains, he was brought before the governor.

"Whence am I?" he said, proudly, holding his head erect and looking
De Soto straight in the eye.  "I am from Apalachee.  What you get
there, you will see!  Our warriors will pin ye to the ground with
their lances; they will hack ye in pieces with their swords, and
consume ye with fire!  Wait ye and see!"

Far from being deterred by these menaces, De Soto was moved to try
conclusions with the savage Apalachees.  He had decided to establish
his winter quarters in their province, come what might, and the order
was given to march.  Three days of sweltering toil succeeded, in the
traversing of an arid plain, and on the fourth the Spaniards entered
the most dismal morass of any they had seen.  It was a vast swamp, in
the midst of a gloomy forest, through the tangled undergrowth of
which there was a single narrow trail, only wide enough for them to
march in Indian file.  In the centre of this forest swamp was a lake
of unknown extent, black and forbidding, swarming with snakes and
alligators.  Beyond the lake lay {134} the land of promise, Apalachee
(the Indians told De Soto), and that was sufficient for him to essay
its passage.

Making camp on the skirts of the forest, he detailed a hundred
cross-bow-men and halberdiers, together with twelve men who could
swim, to penetrate the swamp and force a passage through the lake.
They were driven back, before they had gone a hundred paces, by
Indians concealed in the thickets, who assailed them with javelins,
arrows, and lances, and compelled them to retreat.  Receiving heavy
reinforcements from the main army, they returned to the attack, but
succeeded only in ascertaining that the water of the lake was too
deep to be forded, and that beyond it extended the same black forest,
through which the narrow trail wound like a snake for several miles.

[Illustration: THE MARCH THROUGH THE FOREST]

No obstacle was ever encountered by De Soto which he deemed
insurmountable.  He was never daunted by circumstances the most
adverse, nor discouraged by ill-fortune.  He resolved to make a night
march through the swamp of the dismal lake, and, sending on ahead two
hundred chosen soldiers, who were encased in armor from head to foot,
he fell in behind with the bulk of the army.  {135} He formed a
living wedge, as it were, faced with steel, and drove it home by
ponderous blows.  Entering the forest defile between midnight and
dawn, the advance-guard succeeded in reaching and crossing the lake
before the Indians were aroused.  They had not expected a night
attack, and had left the lake unwatched.  Darkness enshrouded these
brave cavaliers as they passed, in single file, between the trunks of
ghostly cypress-trees, hung with funereal banners of moss and draped
in vines that depended from their limbs like writhing serpents.
Cautiously they felt their way, parting the vines with their swords
and prodding the leaves with their lances.  In the centre of the
black lake water was a primitive bridge, formed of fallen trees and
logs.  They crawled across it like panthers, their stout hearts
beating wildly, for here they had fully expected resistance.  But
they had safely passed the waterway, and were already assembling on
the farther side of the lake, when the savages discovered them.

Daylight revealed them to the astonished Indians, who greeted the
sight with yells and wolf-like howls.  Like wolves, too, they fell
upon these mailed monsters who had {136} invaded their land, and
dashed themselves to pieces against their armor-clad bodies.  As well
might the waves of ocean dash against a rock, for the Spaniards were
unyielding.  Some of them went down, for they were fighting
waist-deep in the water, and never rose again; but their foes went
with them.

They could not retreat, because of the pressure from behind.  Arrows
glanced from their armor, lances from their helmets, but now and
again a ponderous battle-axe descended and crushed out all life
within.  Still, inch by inch and foot by foot the valorous Spaniards
advanced, meeting lances with sword-thrusts, arrows with cross-bows
and arquebuses; and thus the living wedge was driven home.  Naked
bodies were not proof against keen Toledo blades--they could not
resist the impact of men in armor; and when, finally, the cavalry
came into action, the savages went down like fields of grain before
the hurricane.  But Apalachee nature could not understand defeat,
would not think of surrender, and the savage warriors continued to
contest the pass two days and a night, until their foes were weary
with fighting and almost dead from loss of sleep.

These Indians had fought the army of {137} Narvaez, and had defeated
him, so they had a contempt for cross-bows and arquebuses.  As for
the horses--they impeded their advance by fallen trees, bound
together with vines, and, when the horsemen were entangled, would
creep up and slash at them from beneath, bringing steed and rider to
the ground, where they were slaughtered.  But the cavalry had their
revenge when the open plains were reached.  Then the horses
themselves seemed to share their riders' rage and fury, and the
Indians were cut down without mercy.  No quarter was given nor asked,
for the Spaniards had taken their lives in their hands, and the
Apalachees gave theirs gladly in defence of their country.

After marching and fighting during several days, all the time in the
midst of seemingly interminable fields of maize, where, beneath the
rustling pennons, gleamed golden pumpkins innumerable, the weary
Spaniards arrived at a dark and rapid stream coursing through a
forest.  Though it might have been easily forded had they been
unopposed, they found their passage obstructed by a barrier of
palisados, behind which the Indians had gathered in great force.
Night was coming, and there was no time to parley, {138} even if the
governor had been in the mood, so he ordered a troop of dismounted
horsemen, who were the best protected by their armor, to storm the
barricade.  With shields in front and swords and hatchets in hand,
they dashed into the river, amid a storm of javelins and arrows.  The
Indians met them unflinchingly and killed several of their number,
wounding many others; but the barrier was carried, and the troops
poured tumultuously across the stream, putting to the sword such
laggards in flight as they could overtake.  A camp was established
two leagues beyond the forest, in a fertile country similar to that
which they had recently passed through, and here De Soto hoped to
rest awhile and recuperate.

But, though the level fields presented a clear course for the
cavalry, with no hiding-places save the stacks of maize, the wary and
ferocious savages kept the camp in a constant state of alarm.  The
sentinels were shot down at their posts, patrols were attacked while
going their rounds, and soldiers off duty were unable to sleep on
account of the yells and howls that went up on every side.  Flights
of arrows, too, fell in the very centre of the camp and wounded
several Spaniards {139} while they were endeavoring to prevent a
stampede of their horses.

In distress and gloom, exposed to incessant assaults by the restless
and determined enemy, the soldiers passed the fourth night since they
had emerged from the swamp, after patiently enduring and sturdily
resisting for nearly one hundred hours, all the time with weapons in
their hands.  Such captives as they had taken boasted loudly of their
cacique's prowess, and assured the Spaniards that the reception they
had given them was nothing to what they would get should they
approach his capital.

Apalachee had been vaunted by the Indians all the way from Ocali; yet
when entered it was found to contain no monument to human greatness,
past or present.  It consisted of about two hundred straw huts,
without doors or windows, and with wattled walls plastered over with
mud.  Had De Soto been an ordinary man, his spirits would have sunk
within him; but, as has been said before, he was not an ordinary man.
He was heroic in his sublime faith, but grotesquely so in his blind
persistence in following a path which led him nowhere and pursuing a
course which became the {140} more involved in difficulties the
farther he went.

Following his usual practice, he endeavored to get the cacique,
Capafi, in his power, at first by sending him valuable presents
accompanied by proffers of his friendship, then by despatching
scouting-parties to capture him in his stronghold.  This retreat was
established in the centre of a dense forest, swamp-surrounded and
fortified at every point of approach.  It was hunted out and
assaulted by De Soto himself, at the head of a band of horsemen
chosen for their courage and endurance.  At the end of a long,
narrow, and winding trail, the governor found himself confronted with
a barricade made of palisados bound together with osiers.  This was
stormed and carried; but within it was another, still stronger, and
defended by savages fighting with the desperation of despair.  A
hand-to-hand conflict ensued, which ended only with the death of
nearly all the defenders.

When, at last, the cacique was discovered, squat like a toad in the
farthest corner of the inmost hut, it was seen that he was too fat to
walk.  He could only crawl on his hands {141} beloved by his
surviving subjects, who bore him in their arms to De Soto, by whom he
was kindly received and promised good treatment so long as he should
keep the peace.




{142}

XI

THE FIRST WINTER IN FLORIDA

1539-1540

Returning with his captive to Anhayca, the Apalachee capital, the
governor made preparations, the last week in October, 1539, for
settling down there for the winter; but not to a life of inaction.
While he had been in pursuit of Capafi, two of his captains, Tinoco
and Vasconceles, were scouring the country for gold and supplies, and
shortly after his return another, Juan de Añasco, was sent southward
on a most important mission.  This was to discover, if possible, a
route to the sea, which, the Indians told De Soto, was not many
leagues away.

Taking with him ninety horse and foot, Añasco, who was the
_contador_, or auditor, of the expedition, and a man who could be
trusted implicitly, started on his perilous trip to the sea-coast.
It must be remembered {143} that De Soto had no maps or charts upon
which he could rely for guidance, and depended entirely upon
information given him by the Indians, who were not always understood
by the interpreter.  On this occasion it happened that the governor
had been correctly informed, and Añasco found the object of his
search, though only after enduring great privations.

He took along as guide an Apalachee prisoner, who was soon accused of
treachery, because he attempted (the soldiers said) to lose them in a
vast morass.  Several times he brought them within sound of the sea
waves on a distant shore, and then started in a different direction,
which invariably led into the wilderness.  At last their suspicions
became so strong that an iron collar was put on his neck, to which
was attached a chain, held by a soldier, who was charged to keep
strict watch, lest he should escape.

One night, as his enemies were asleep, he snatched a glowing brand
from the campfire and beat the soldier with it over the head, at the
same time trampling upon him as he lay helpless on the ground.  This
so exasperated Captain Añasco, who was already greatly incensed, that
he thrust the {144} recreant guide through with a lance, then loosed
his hound, who quickly tore him to pieces.  The Spaniards thus
gratified their desire for revenge; but they had deprived themselves
of the only man who knew the way out of the wilderness, and for
fifteen days they wandered aimlessly about, finally reaching the
coast nearly exhausted and on the verge of starvation.

Here they found, not only abundant supplies of fish, but a large and
excellent bay, and came upon gruesome relics of the ill-starred
expedition of Narvaez.  That this bay was the one from which the
remnants of his command had set sail was shown by the stumps of trees
which had been felled for the construction of the brigantines, a
forge for the making of bolts and nails, and finally by the skulls of
horses which had been killed.

This bay was undoubtedly that of the present St. Marks, and is
distant but a few leagues, in a direct line southward, from Anhayca,
which was probably on or near the site of Tallahassee.  It was called
Auté by the natives, who had picked up a few Spanish words from the
former visitors, and who conducted Añasco and his men to scenes
identified {145} with its discovery.  With this valuable information,
after going out in a canoe and sounding the harbor, Añasco returned
to Anhayca, whence he was soon despatched by De Soto to Tampa, with
orders for Captain Calderon to abandon his encampment there and join
him in Apalachee.

The intrepid Añasco, in command of thirty lancers, like himself men
of valor and endurance, set out on November 20th for Tampa, or
Espíritu Santo, which he reached at the end of ten days.  As De Soto
did not take part in this desperate dash through a country swarming
with Indians already roused to fury by the outrages committed upon
them by the Spaniards, we feel constrained to omit it from our
narrative.  But it was one of the most venturesome episodes of the
expedition, and replete with exciting incident.  Añasco took Calderon
orders to proceed northward by land, while he himself was to sail
along the coast to the harbor of Auté, and march thence to Apalachee.
To a worthy companion of his, Gomez Arias, was given the enviable
commission of bearing to Doña Isabel tidings from her liege lord in
Apalachee, and he soon set sail with two caravels for Havana,
carrying with him {146} twenty Indian women and some pearls of the
country as presents.

The garrison at Tampa had planted gardens, which were fruitful and
flourishing at the time Añasco returned, and they were loath to leave
them, especially when they learned that no gold had been discovered.
This was their first demand: "Have you found any gold?"  The welfare
of their commander and comrades seemed to concern them no whit; but
in refreshing contrast to their indifference was the lively interest
of the good cacique, Mocoso, who inquired earnestly after his friends
in distant Apalachee.

It is a pleasure to record that he was richly rewarded for his
loyalty to the Spaniards, for to him and his people they gave all
their surplus stores, helmets, armor, lances, pikes, etc., of which a
mountain-heap remained after the retiring soldiers had taken all they
could carry.  It took Mocoso's people nearly a week to remove these
articles to their town, though every man, woman, and child was
impressed into service; and thereafter they were living examples of
Spanish beneficiaries.

What became of all these things, especially of such as were in their
nature imperishable, {147} like the helmets and the armor, no one in
recent times has been able to discover.  It would seem likely that
some relics of this expedition, which wound its way through the
forests and over the prairies for years, scattering hundreds of
objects in iron and steel along its route, might be found; but few,
if any, have been recovered.  Mocoso and his subjects have
disappeared, along with the objects with which the Spaniards enriched
them, and so, also, have all the tribes encountered, except a few in
the northern region traversed by De Soto.

Gomez Arias sailed southward with two caravels, and safely reached
Havana, with news which cheered the heart of Doña Isabel and at the
same time saddened it.  While the message from De Soto was
affectionate, nevertheless it conveyed to her his stern resolve never
to return without accomplishing the objects sought.  Thus far there
had been no indications either of a golden region or an extensive
empire (as he frankly stated), but he should still persist in his
search for both.  His sorrowing consort knew him well enough to be
convinced that, if neither existed, she might never see him again,
for his proud nature would {148} not permit him to return to Cuba
impoverished.

She had already divined the situation, it is said, and had sent a
letter to Tampa, which Captain Calderon bore to his commander,
begging him to abandon the enterprise and resume his
captain-generalcy in Cuba, which was an island already ripe for
development.  After entering a plea for the Indians of Florida, she
continues: "I hope, my dearest husband, that no considerations of
worldly advantage will make you neglectful of the precepts of
humanity and of the duties of religion.  Be persuaded to return to me
at once, for you can gain nothing in Florida which can compensate me
for the sorrow and anxiety I feel in your absence....  If you have
gained nothing, I shall be better satisfied, because there may be the
less cause for repentance.  Whatever may have been your want of
success or your losses, I implore you to come to me without delay;
for any reverse of fortune is far better than the suspense and misery
I now endure."

It would seem that the daughter of Pedrarias was paying the penalty
of her father's sins, for surely few women have had to suffer more
mental anguish than she endured {149} during those long months of
waiting, which stretched into still longer years that finally ebbed
away into eternity.  She was never to see her lover and husband
again, yet she remained hopeful and faithful, sending several
missions in search of him, all of which were fruitless in their quest.

While Juan de Añasco sailed northward, taking with him in the
brigantines his thirty lancers, sturdy Pedro Calderon, with one
hundred and twenty horse and foot, made his way to Apalachee by land.
He had literally to carve a path anew through the forests and swamps,
for, though thrice opened, it had closed behind the previous
cavaliers, like the waves parted by a vessel's keel.  Almost every
mile of his route was contested by the enemy, and he arrived at
Apalachee, the last of December, with his little force reduced by
many killed and wounded.

Añasco arrived shortly before Captain Calderon, and De Soto received
them both with rejoicings.  The original band of adventurers was now
reunited, and, as the soldiers looked upon their governor with
feelings akin to reverence, there was no dissension in camp, but all
dwelled together as brothers.  The interior of Florida had been {150}
opened up by the various marches through it, and the west coast had
been explored as far north as St. Marks.  Westward from this bay both
the coast and interior country were still unknown, and De Soto sent
Diego Maldonado, in the brigantines Añasco had brought, with a
company of soldiers and sailors, to investigate.  He sailed away
westward, and about seventy leagues from Auté found what his
commander wanted--a magnificent harbor large enough for
world-commerce and advantageously situated, with its splendid country
adjacent, for a colony.  The fleets of all Europe might safely ride
at anchor there, Maldonado reported to De Soto, and, moreover, it was
land-locked, with shores so "steep-to" that vessels might sail right
up to the bluffs.

This information rejoiced the governor exceedingly, and he took
energetic measures, by despatching Maldonado to Havana for a fleet
well freighted with supplies, towards making this bay of Ochuse, as
the natives called it, a nucleus for the great empire which he hoped
to create in Florida.  This fine harbor is known to-day as Pensacola,
and is worthy of all the encomiums that the early navigators lavished
upon it.  Instructing {151} Maldonado to sail for Havana with all
speed and rendezvous at Ochuse the following October, De Soto, with
tireless energy, made preparations for an extended exploration of the
interior country, intending to meet his lieutenant at the time
appointed.  He had kept the road to Auté open by marching and
countermarching over it several companies of horsemen, so the various
operations were conducted and communication was maintained between
the port and Apalachee without any considerable losses by the
Spaniards.  Yet they were continually in warfare with the savages,
who assailed them by night and by day, attacking not only their
outposts, but the headquarters as well, with all the fury of their
first assaults.

These Apalachees, in fact, were unconquerable, and, even though their
capital was in the hands of the enemy, they never ceased their
efforts until the Spaniards had departed from their province.  De
Soto had thought to restrain them somewhat by keeping their chief,
the fat cacique, in custody; but this individual was as crafty as he
was skilled in warfare, and one day he effected his escape by playing
upon the credulity of his captors.  His warriors continued to {152}
molest the Spaniards at every opportunity; and when the governor
remonstrated, telling him that he thought it very ungrateful in his
subjects to do so, when their chief was receiving from him every
kindness and attention, he agreed and expressed great grief at their
conduct.

"But," he said, "they do not know that I am well treated.  They think
of me as imprisoned in a dungeon and with fetters on my limbs.  Let
me but show myself to them unfettered, and doubtless they will cease
their ravages at once."

De Soto agreed that this seemed reasonable, and asked him how he
should proceed.

"My chief men are encamped in a forest, five or six leagues from
here," answered the cacique.  "Send me to them, guarded by a small
company of soldiers, and I will soon bring them to terms.  But do not
put irons upon me, for that would enrage them."

As the obese cacique could not walk without assistance, much less run
away, the governor assented to this proposition, and, closely guarded
by a company of picked soldiers, he was sent to interview his
warriors.  Setting out at daylight one morning, they {153} marched
till near sunset, when the forest was reached in which the warriors
were said to be concealed.  The soldiers were weary from their march,
and, though they took every precaution, by posting sentinels and
surrounding the cacique with a very strong guard, they all fell
asleep in the night.

Their prisoner was not weary, as he had been carried all the way, and
he was very wide-awake, for, watching his opportunity, about midnight
he crawled off into the thickets on his hands and knees; and that was
the last the Spaniards ever saw of the fat cacique.

When his absence became known, next morning, the sentinels swore, by
all the saints they could remember and name, that they had not slept
a wink, so it was agreed among the company that the fat cacique must
have been a necromancer, and, by conjuring a demon to his aid, had
got himself spirited away.  At least, this was the story they told
the governor on their return, and he, wise and forbearing man that he
was, said in reply (though with something approaching a twinkle in
his eyes): "It is very possible, my sons, for I really believe these
Indians are capable of more wonderful feats than merely {154}
conjuring off a fat cacique.  Still, would I had been there to behold
the feat!"

Relieved of anxiety respecting their chief, the Apalachee warriors
redoubled their efforts to drive the invaders away.  Whenever the
Spaniards went to the forest for wood or to the streams for water,
they were quickly surrounded by hosts of savages, who massacred and
scalped the white men and broke the chains of their slaves, whom they
took with them to their haunts.  Though some few were captured, most
of the Apalachees encountered fought to the death, and they were so
regardless of pain that, says the Portuguese chronicler, "if their
hands and noses were cut off, they made no more account of it than if
each of them had been a Mucius Scævola of Rome.  Not one of them, for
fear of death, would deny that he belonged to Apalachee."

Two young cavaliers, Diego de Soto, a nephew of the governor, and
Diego Velasquez, were making their rounds one day, when they espied
an Indian stealing across a field surrounded by a forest.

"At him!" shouted Diego de Soto, rising in his stirrups and shaking
his lance.  Finding himself unable to regain the forest, the {155}
Indian placed his back against an isolated tree in the cornfield,
fixed an arrow in his bow, and calmly awaited his enemy.  As he
pranced up to the tree, Diego de Soto made a pass at the Indian with
his lance, which the latter dodged, and then let loose an arrow.  It
struck the horse in a vital spot, and he fell dead in less than
twenty paces.

Then Diego Valasquez took a hand in the affray, but met with no
better luck than his companion.  He missed the savage with his lance,
and an arrow was buried in the body of his horse, just back of the
saddle-girth, and the noble beast stumbled headlong to his death.
Enraged beyond expression at the loss of their gallant steeds, the
two cavaliers sprang for the Indian with their lances; but he was
more than their equal afoot, and fled to the forest, keeping just
beyond reach of their weapons and jeering them all the way.

The two Diegos walked ruefully back to camp, where they had to endure
the gibes of their comrades also.  But they were far more fortunate
than two other horsemen, Simon Rodriguez and Roque de Yelves, who
rode out one afternoon to gather wild grapes at the edge of the
forest.  Leaving {156} their horses at the foot of a tree, they
climbed up into the branches, where the vines were thick with fruit.

Some savages discovered them there, and shot them with barbed arrows.
As they fell to the ground, their horses broke loose and fled wildly
to the camp, pursued by bow-shots from the Indians.  One of them had
a few drops of blood on his thigh, but nothing was thought of it at
the time.  Next morning he was dead, and when opened an arrow was
found in his entrails, which had entered his thigh at the spot where
the drops of blood were seen.




{157}

XII

THE TRACKLESS WILDERNESS

1540

The scenery of Apalachee province was varied and beautiful, and its
agricultural resources so great that the Spaniards had subsisted for
five months upon the country in their immediate vicinity without
foraging more than five miles from their camp.  But of gold, the real
object of their quest, they had found no trace.  There was none in
the country, though in a province which lay to the north and east,
some Indians told De Soto, there was "great store" of the precious
metal.

The easy credulity of the Spaniards and the eagerness with which they
seized upon any chance bit of gossip relating to gold, we find
quaintly set forth in the narrative of the Portuguese member of their
company styled the "Fidalgo."  "Of the Indians taken in Napetuca," he
states, "the treasurer, Juan {158} de Gaytan, brought a youth with
him who said that he did not belong to that country, but to one afar,
in the direction of the sun's rising, from which he had been a long
time absent, visiting other lands.  That its name was Yupaha, and was
governed by a woman, the town she lived in being of astonishing size,
and many neighboring lords her tributaries, some of whom gave her
clothing, others gold in quantity.

"He showed how the metal was taken from the earth, melted, and
refined, exactly as though he had seen it all done; or else the devil
had taught him how it was; and they who knew aught of such matters
declared it impossible that he could give that account without having
been an eye-witness, and they who beheld the signs he made credited
all that was understood as certain."

This valuable information was conveyed entirely by signs, for the
interpreter, Juan Ortiz, did not understand the speech of this youth
who had come from the land of the sunrise; but, on the strength of
this vague assurance of gold existing somewhere beyond the
wilderness, the governor issued orders for the expedition to march.
Refreshed by the long stay in a land of plenty, with most {159} of
the soldiers in fine fettle, and the horses in good condition, the
army was once more set in motion, and another chapter was opened in
that book of horrors with its letters written in blood.

That the winter had not passed without other tragedies than those we
have recorded is shown by a casual remark of the narrator already
referred to, who says: "The governor ordered his men to go provided
with maize for a march through sixty leagues of desert.  The cavalry
carried their grain on the horses, and the infantry theirs on the
back; because the Indians they brought with them for service, _being
naked and in chains, had perished_ in great part, during the winter."

After a short stay at a place called Capachiqui, the march was
resumed, with De Soto in the advance, at the head of his horsemen.
He was anxious to reach the golden country, and, impatient with the
plodding foot-soldiers, laden as they were with packs of provisions,
in addition to their heavy weapons and armor, he dashed off in the
direction of the wilderness.  In the province of Atapaha, the name of
which is still borne by a river of that region, he found a town,
called by some Toalli, and by others Achese, {160} which was the
best-built of any he had seen.  The huts, or houses, had their walls
plastered with clay, while the roofs were covered with cane, "after
the fashion of tile."  Every Indian of prominence, he found, had a
hut for summer-time, as well as for winter, and the latter was
plastered inside and out.  It had a very small door, which was closed
at night in cold weather, and when a fire was started the room became
so warm that the inmates slept without any clothing.

As to the costumes of these people: while the women wore finely
dressed deerskins and shawls made of grass, the men considered
themselves in "full dress" with a breechcloth and a blanket, the
latter cast over the shoulder, "after the manner of the gypsies."
The warriors were an independent band of braves, who at once demanded
of De Soto whence he came, why he came, and what he wanted.  He
replied that he came in peace, that his object was to convert them to
his religion, and that he sought for gold.

"He told the cacique that he was going about the country seeking for
the greatest prince there and the richest province."  The cacique
rejoined that he was the greatest prince, but that the richest
province lay far {161} to the northward and eastward.  Still, he had
an abundance of supplies, such as wild turkeys, partridges, conies,
and native dogs, which he gave the Spaniards on request.

The dogs were especially appreciated, their meat being tender and
finely flavored.  Though the Spaniards had thus far been able to
subsist on such vegetable food as they could forage in the Indian
fields, they were famishing for meat.  "On this account, the dogs
were as much esteemed by the Christians as though they had been fat
sheep," and many an invalid soldier, when sinking from debility,
would say, "Now, if I had but a slice of meat, or only a few lumps of
salt, I should not thus die!"

The Indians never lacked for meat in this country so plentifully
supplied with wild game, as they were very skilful in shooting and
snaring it; while the soldiers not only were unskilled, but dared
not, when in the forests, stray from the line of march.  "Such was
the craving for meat," says one of them, "that when the six hundred
men who followed Soto arrived at a town, and found there twenty or
thirty dogs, he who could get sight of one and kill it thought he had
done no little; and he who proved himself so {162} active, if his
captain knew of it, and he forgot to send him a quarter, would show
his displeasure and make him feel it in the night watches."

Besides provisions, the cacique gave De Soto the services of four
hundred carriers, who were to carry his luggage into the adjoining
province, the ruler of which was one Patofa, a mighty man of war.
Before De Soto parted from his hospitable friend, he made him a
present of the one piece of ordnance, probably a falconet, that he
had thus far brought with him from Espíritu Santo.  It had been
hauled all the way, by great exertions, and, so far as the records
show, had never been fired in battle.  As even the arquebuses were
too slow of fire, and cumbersome, when opposed to the Indian archers
(who could send from their bows at least a dozen arrows to one
discharge of the fire-arm), the cannon had been found of little use.
So the governor gave it to the cacique, who was filled with delight,
and when it was fired, shattering an oak-tree with its heavy ball, he
was overwhelmed with amazement and terror.

It is doubtful if that cannon was ever discharged again, as the
Indians had no powder, {163} and knew not how to load and fire it if
they had.  Nor, so far as we can tell, was it seen again by civilized
man, after the soldiers of De Soto filed through the forest trails on
their way to the next province.  As the gift of his white friend, the
"Son of the Sun," it was carefully guarded by the cacique, and, as a
potent engine of destruction possessed of mysterious powers, it may
have been sacredly cherished, even revered as a god, by those pagans
of the Floridian forests.

From Atapaha, where De Soto had been so generously entertained, he
passed to the province of Cofaqui, the cacique of which, already
informed of his coming, met him on the frontier, with a retinue of
richly costumed warriors.  He desired to detain the Spaniards in his
territory, but De Soto was intent upon seeing with his own eyes the
province of Cofachiqui, in which were the mines of gold, and where
lived the fair cacica, or female cacique.  He would not tarry,
therefore, longer than was necessary to rest his men and prepare for
the crossing of the intervening desert, which was reported to be a
seven days' journey in extent.  As few living things existed there by
which life might be sustained on the way, all supplies {164} must be
carried along, and the cacique ordered his subjects to gather vast
quantities of walnuts, acorns, dried plums, and grapes.  These
Indians had no dogs, and were not so expert at snaring game as their
neighbors, so the Spaniards looked forward, perforce, to a vegetarian
diet, at which they grumbled greatly.

Four thousand warriors were quickly assembled by Cacique Patofa, and
four thousand carriers to transport the supplies.  When De Soto
expressed surprise at the gathering of such a host, and intimated
that the warriors, at least, might be left behind to advantage, the
cacique replied that a perpetual enmity had existed between his tribe
and the Cofachiquis, and as they were stronger than his people, he
was going to avail himself of the protection afforded by the
Spaniards to wreak vengeance on his enemies.

This frank admission somewhat perplexed the governor, whose general
policy was to conciliate the natives rather than incense them, and he
especially desired to cultivate the friendship of the Cofachiquis, in
whose keeping was the treasure he had been seeking so long.  But
Cacique Patofa was a living presence, while Cofachiqui was a far
country, {165} which he could only reach, if at all, by the
assistance of his savage friend.  So he remained silent, though
revolving in his mind how he should rid himself of such troublesome
allies when they were no longer necessary.

He was not long left in doubt as to the actual intentions of Patofa,
who, in order to impress his white friend with his prowess, threw
aside his rich mantle of marten skin, which served him as a royal
toga, and, seizing a great wooden broadsword, cut and thrust with it
at an imaginary enemy, and so skilfully as to elicit De Soto's
admiration.  Addressing his warriors and the assembled Spaniards, he
then said, "I have pledged my word that, with the assistance of these
strangers, now our friends, I will avenge the insults, the deaths,
and the losses our fathers have sustained from the Cofachiquis.  And
my vengeance shall be such that the memory of past defeats shall be
wiped away forever."

Believing it best to dissemble his real feelings, De Soto made no
reply to the cacique's boastful speech, but gave him a cap of yellow
satin, a shirt, and a silver plume, at the same time directing him to
reverence the cross, which he had set up on a mound in the {166}
village, and make his devotions before it.  This the cacique promised
to do, and, holding the ornament aloft, he said, "You are from
heaven, and this plume of yours, which you have given me: I can eat
with it, I shall sleep with it, and I shall go to war with it!"

"That is so," replied the governor, "you can do all that."  Then the
two embraced, and all present repaired to tables set beneath the
trees, where they feasted and made merry; the Spaniards in their
shining armor and the savages in their breech-clouts and blankets of
deerskin.

They were to start on the following morning, but were delayed
somewhat by an untoward event--namely, the strange conduct of their
guide, a young lad named Perico, whom they had brought from
Apalachee.  He was to lead them to Cofachiqui, but, perhaps repenting
of his promise, suddenly went mad, frothing at the mouth, and raving
like a maniac.

He had chosen the hour of midnight for his outbreak, and, fearing the
treachery of their host, whose warriors outnumbered them ten to one,
the soldiery were in a panic.  "To arms!  To arms!" sounded the
trumpets.  Helmets and breastplates were donned in {167} haste, and
weapons seized, the first that came to hand.

When Perico's hut was entered, he was found trembling in affright,
and so weak he could not stand.  Commanded to tell what had occurred,
he declared that he had been assailed by a demon--a most frightful
monster, with a host of little imps in his train, who had beaten him
until he fainted.  The moment the Spaniards appeared, however, they
promptly vanished, from which circumstance he was convinced it was
the devil that had attacked him, and, to guard against future visits,
he desired to become a Christian and be baptized.  A priest who was
standing by, one Friar John, solemnly shook his head and said it was
even so; the youth was certainly possessed of a devil, and he would
exorcise the arch fiend at once.  This he did by the laying on of
hands, and the afflicted boy recovered so quickly that all beholding
were amazed.

The desert, or wilderness, proved to be so, merely, in the sense of
being uninhabited, or _despoblado_, as the Spaniards termed it.  It
really comprised a beautiful country, with tree-crowned hills and
rugged mountains, grassy glades and foaming rivers.  A great {168}
deal of game was captured by the Indian hunters, but on the seventh
day out the provisions became entirely exhausted, for there were
nearly nine thousand mouths to feed.  To add to the perplexity of the
commanders, the broad road, or well-defined trail, which they had
been following, abruptly terminated, and they found themselves
confronted with an apparently impenetrable forest.

Both commanders became quite testy, and their men suffered in
consequence, for they insisted upon the strictest discipline being
maintained, even though their followers were on the verge of
starvation.  One of the Spaniards, a young man named Cadena, lost or
misplaced his sword, and the governor ordered him to be hanged at
once.  He finally escaped the dread penalty through the intervention
of his captain; but an Indian who had been made prisoner, and who
refused to reveal the road to Cofachiqui, was, by order of De Soto,
burned at the stake.

Not to be behind his rival in respect to discipline, Cacique Patofa
made an example of a warrior who had deserted, by inflicting a
peculiar punishment.  He had him stripped and thrown down upon the
bank of a small {169} stream that flowed through his camp.  Then,
while two Indians stood over him with clubs, he was ordered to drink
the streamlet dry.  The poor wretch did his best; but still the
stream flowed on, and whenever he ceased, from inability to perform
the hopeless task, he was cruelly belabored by the Indians with their
clubs.  Patofa declared that he should dry up the stream or drink
till he died; but the sympathies of De Soto were enlisted, and he
interceded so effectually that the warrior was released.




{170}

XIII

THE PRINCESS AND HER PEARLS

1540

De Soto encamped in a pine grove on the bank of a deep river, and
there awaited the return of his scouts.  Most of the weary troopers
came back at nightfall, one after another, driving their horses
before them with sticks or leading them by the bridle, but without
having found any road or sign of settlement.  They were famished, as
well as worn with fatigue, and, as the maize, acorns, wild grapes,
and even the roots and herbs, were exhausted, the governor ordered
some of the swine to be slaughtered, giving to each man half a pound
of pork.  This allowance was not sufficient to allay their hunger,
but served to sustain them a little longer, and meanwhile four
parties of cavalry were sent out again to scour the country.

Juan de Añasco proved the successful scout, {171} for, after
travelling down-stream, along the river-bank, three days and nights,
he espied an isolated hamlet.  It held but few inhabitants at the
time, but proved to be well supplied with provisions, one barbacoa,
or corn-crib, containing five hundred measures of meal made from
parched maize and a great quantity of corn on the cob.  The famished
Spaniards soon allayed the cravings of hunger, and Añasco sent back
messengers to the governor and his people, "who were as much
delighted as though they had been raised from death to life."

They broke camp immediately and pushed forward to the village, which
De Soto aptly named Socorro, or Succor, and where he remained until
all his scattered troopers had come in.  For their information he had
ordered an inscription cut into the bark of a pine-tree: "Dig here;
at the root of this pine you will find a letter."

He reached Socorro on a Monday, and by Wednesday the three captains,
who had been scouting in various directions, came straggling in, with
nothing to add as to other villages existing in the country.  But one
of them exhibited to De Soto a skull and pair of horns which he had
found, and which {172} puzzled them all exceedingly.  They had heard
of herds of cattle owned by the Indians, and occasionally had been
treated to a taste of beef, but could not learn where those herds
were kept.  The truth is, those "Indian cattle" were bison, or
buffalo, which once roamed the prairies of the region traversed by De
Soto in the year 1540 and thereafter.

The Spaniards remained at Socorro a week, during which time diligent
inquiry was made for other villages, and the country was explored in
every direction.  Four Indians were captured, "not one of whom would
say anything else than that he knew of no other town."  The governor
ordered one of them to be burned, and thereupon another said that two
days' journey from there was a province called Cofachiqui.  Socorro,
in fact, was a frontier village of Cofachiqui, and several other
settlements were discovered as the march was resumed down the river;
but all were deserted, and had been recently ravaged.  While the
houses contained an abundance of provisions, and while the broad
fields of maize had been carefully cultivated, showing that their
owners could not have been long absent, not a living soul {173} came
forth to greet or repel the Spaniards.  But, scattered along the
trails, floating in the river, and out-stretched upon the thresholds
of many a deserted hut, were the mutilated corpses of men, women, and
children who had been barbarously murdered and scalped.  Patofa's
bands had preceded the Spaniards, and had taken vengeance upon their
ancient enemies, the Cofachiquis.  Well aware that De Soto would not
countenance such atrocities, they had committed the massacres
stealthily, and had pressed so far ahead of their allies that it was
difficult for the governor to overtake them.

Calling his captains around him, and pointing to the scalpless
corpses collected by his orders and heaped up in the public square of
the village he had last entered, De Soto exclaimed, indignantly:
"Gentlemen, this must not be permitted to go on.  We are, as you
know, marching into an unknown country, and on the frontier of a
province richer than any other we have entered.  The queen of that
province is reputed wealthy and powerful, and it behooves us to
cultivate her friendship rather than incur her enmity.  Go, then,
forward, with your swiftest {174} horsemen, and by all means
intercept our ally, the cacique.  Tell him to return, to come to me
at once, for I wish to say certain things to him of moment."

In this tenor spake the governor to his captains, and they obeyed him
so well and so promptly that soon they had found and turned back the
cacique, who came willingly, inasmuch as his vengeance had been
sated, and he already had in his possession hundreds of scalps, which
he would take back to his people as trophies of his prowess.  When,
therefore, De Soto said he had sent for the purpose of dismissing him
with thanks and rich presents, and begged that he would return,
Patofa assented, saying that he was satisfied, for he had done his
duty by his ancestors, and their manes were appeased.  He and his
braves then returned to Cofaqui, while the Spaniards kept on to
Cofachiqui, which they reached a few days later, with the gallant
Juan de Añasco in the lead.  At the head of a reconnoissance he
discovered an Indian village on the opposite bank of the river,
which, from its size, he imagined to be a place of importance,
perhaps the residence of the chief.  He approached it at night, and,
having stealthily made his way {175} to the river-bank, where was a
landing-place for canoes, and from which he could see innumerable
lights and hear the confused murmur of many voices, he returned to
report to his commander.  Promptly at dawn the next day De Soto
placed himself at the head of a hundred horsemen and advanced
directly upon the town.  When arrived at the river-bank he drew up
his troopers in battle array, in order to make the most imposing
appearance possible, and directed Juan Ortiz to say to the astounded
Indians gathered on the opposite bank that he had a message for their
cacique.

A grave and dignified warrior advanced a few paces and demanded:
"Come ye in peace or in war?"

"In peace," replied De Soto, through the interpreter.  "We desire
only to speak with your cacique, and to have a free passage through
your province, with provisions by the way."

"It is well," replied the warrior.  "I will speak to my queen."  He
then made three profound salaams, the first towards the sun, in the
east; the second towards the moon, in the west; the third towards De
Soto, who returned the salute most courteously.

{176}

Soon after, a commotion was observed in the village, where a
procession was being formed in front of the principal dwelling, and
there later emerged from it a litter, or rustic palanquin, in which
was seated a lovely Indian maid.  The palanquin was borne on the
shoulders of four stout men, who lowered it at the water-side and
assisted the occupant, who was undoubtedly a princess or queen, into
a large and gayly decorated canoe.  There she reclined on soft
cushions, beneath a canopy or awning supported on lances held by
stalwart warriors.  Eight comely attendants of her own sex surrounded
and waited on this barbaric princess, whose barge of state was taken
in tow by another grand canoe, filled with warriors and paddled by
half-naked Indians.  In this manner she approached the bank on which
De Soto awaited her, seated in a gilded chair, like a throne, and
surrounded by his captains in their shining armor.  These brilliantly
costumed strangers, with their caparisoned steeds and wonderful
weapons, were things entirely new in the experience of this simple
princess of the wilds; but she manifested neither alarm nor surprise
as she landed from the barge and calmly took her {177} seat on a
large stool provided by an attendant.

Then, with the aid of the interpreters, Juan Ortiz and Perico, the
Indian boy, she and De Soto conversed together, while their
attendants preserved a discreet silence.  The Spaniards were
impressed with her modesty, as well as her dignity, grace, and beauty
of form and feature.  She made a little speech, and a very pretty
one, if we may believe the "Fidalgo of Elvas," who was one of the
cavaliers present at the interview, and who thus reports it:
"Excellent lord, be this coming to these your shores most happy.  My
ability can in no way equal my wishes, nor my services become the
merits of so great a prince; nevertheless, good wishes are to be
valued more than all the treasures of the earth without them.  With
sincerest and purest good-will, I tender you my person, my lands, my
people, and make you these small gifts."

While she was speaking she had been toying with a necklace of
beautiful pearls, which "passed three times round her neck and
descended to her waist, so many there were."  After disengaging the
necklace, she handed it to Juan Ortiz, with the request that {178} he
give it to De Soto.  When told that the governor would appreciate it
most highly if received from her own hands, she shrank back timidly,
saying that she could not do so with propriety.  When urged, however,
she rose, and with a shy laugh threw the precious rope of pearls
about his neck, he stooping to receive the gift, with that knightly
courtesy for which he was ever celebrated.  In return he placed upon
one of her fingers a ring of gold set with a ruby, with which she was
far more pleased than with the pearls, and thanked him gratefully.

Then, the interview terminated, he handed her into her canoe, with
helmet doffed the while, his captains likewise showing the princess
those respectful attentions which are so highly appreciated by the
gentler sex, whether living in the forest or at court.  The cavaliers
were glad, indeed, to behold this lovely apparition, suggestive of
state and royalty; and though she was only half clad, in skins and
not in silks, and her complexion was nut-brown in hue, her tresses
raven black, they became quite enthusiastic in her praise.  Her
attendant maidens were equally discreet.  Their eyes fell shyly as
they beheld the bold glances of the soldiers, {179} but they could
not refrain from looking admiringly at those martial figures cased in
armor.

The cacica had offered De Soto not only half her house, but half the
village for his soldiers, and, by her direction, on the following day
rafts and canoes were sent over to ferry the army across the river.
In due time, all had crossed over, though several horses were lost in
the rapids and whirlpools with which the river abounded, having been
unwisely forced into them by their riders.  A portion of the army was
quartered in the village, but the bulk of the soldiers were lodged in
capacious wigwams, which the princess had ordered built in a large
mulberry grove on the bank of the river.  After all their toils and
battles, many of them would gladly have settled here, taking the
Indian maidens for wives, and have made the beginnings of a
settlement; and it would have been better for many of them if they
had done so, for they marched thence to misery and to death.

The country was open, fertile, and attractive, with great groves of
walnuts and mulberries, fine streams, and extensive grazing-lands.
Two or three leagues distant from {180} the village was another, the
houses in which were abodes of bats and owls, for it had been
abandoned by the Indians on account of a pestilence which had swept
the land.  In the old town were many sepulchres, filled, the natives
told the Spaniards, with treasures of various sorts, such as skins of
fur-bearing animals and pearls.  Despite the pestilence, of which
many of the inmates of these sepulchres had died, they were ravaged
by the soldiers, who secured vast quantities of pearls, which they
later threw away or lost on the march.

"The cacica," says one of her guests, "observing that the Christians
valued pearls, told the governor that, if he cared to order those
sepulchres searched that were in her town, he would find many; and if
he chose to send to those that were in the abandoned towns, he might
load all his horses with them.  They examined those that were in the
town, and found three hundred and fifty pounds' weight of pearls, and
figures of babies and birds made of them."

There were found, also, breastplates, glass beads, and armor.  When
the governor exclaimed at the sight of so many pearls, the cacica
simply said: "Do you consider that of {181} much account?  Go, then,
to Talimico, another village of mine about a league from this, and
you will find so many that your horses cannot carry them."  The
governor replied: "Let them stay there, then.  To whom God gives a
gift, may St. Peter bless it."  With this enigmatical reply, it is
thought, he would have diverted attention from this deposit of
pearls, with the intention, perhaps, of returning to secure them at a
more convenient time.

"That same day," wrote Rodrigo Ranjel, his secretary, "the governor
and some of his staff entered a mosque and oratory of this heathen
people, and, opening some burying-places, they found some bodies of
men fastened on a barbacoa.  Their breasts, necks, arms, and legs
were adorned with pearls; and as they were taking them off, Ranjel
saw something green, like an emerald of good quality, and he showed
it to the governor, who was much rejoiced, and he ordered him to look
out of the enclosure and call Juan de Añasco, their majesties'
treasurer.  Then Ranjel said to him, 'My lord, let us not call any
one, for it may be that this is a precious stone or jewel.'

"The governor replied somewhat angrily, {182} and said, 'Even if it
be one, are we to steal it?'  When Juan de Añasco came they took out
this supposed emerald, and it was but a bit of glass, and there were
also other and many beads of glass, as well as rosaries with their
crosses.  They also found Biscayan axes of iron; from all this
recognizing that they were in the territory where the lawyer, Lucas
Vasquez de Ayllon, came to his ruin....  In the mosque, or house of
worship, at Talimico, there were found breastplates resembling
corselets, and head-pieces made of raw-hide with the hair scraped of,
also very good shields."

The axes, armor, and beads were, doubtless, relics of the ill-fated
expedition of Vasquez de Ayllon, a lawyer from Santo Domingo, who had
landed on the coast of what is now South Carolina in quest of Indian
slaves.  One cargo had been sent to Santo Domingo; but on the second
voyage, Ayllon and his companions were set upon and massacred, to the
number of more than two hundred, and the rich plunder was probably
distributed among the tribes of the coast.  No survivor of that
expedition was found by De Soto; but these relics show that he had
reached a point within a few days' {183} journey of the Atlantic
coast, near the mouth of the Savannah River.

It appeared to some of De Soto's captains that the province of
Cofachiqui would be a good one for a settlement.  While the soil was
not very fertile, yet it was good enough for their purpose, and while
the colony was being established on a sure foundation, it might be
supported by the pearl fisheries, and by trade opened direct with
Spain.

"But Soto, as it was his object to find another treasure like that of
Atabalipa, lord of Peru, would not be content with good lands, or
pearls, even though many of them were worth their weight in gold; so
he answered them who urged him to make a settlement, that in all the
country together there was not support for his troops a single month;
that it was necessary to return to Acusi (Pensacola), where Maldonado
was to wait; and should a richer country not be found, they who would
could always return; and in their absence the Indians would plant
their fields and be better provided with maize."

Still, the governor was not insensible to the charms of the province,
nor to the blandishments {184} of its beautiful cacica, whose
admiration for the handsome cavalier amounted at first almost to
worship.  She not only entertained him hospitably, but she endeavored
to induce her mother, the queen-regent, to visit her and see for
herself what wonderful creatures were these beings who had honored
her with their attentions.  But the mother of the princess was a
widow, and wary.  The more she was urged to emerge from her retreat
and show herself, the farther she retired into the forest depths.
Learning that she was a woman of superior attainments, and that she
possessed vast quantities of pearls, De Soto was very earnest in his
efforts to draw her from the forest.  He despatched the trusty Añasco
with a troop, and the princess sent with him a young man, her cousin,
as guide.  He resembled the beautiful princess, it is said, bore
himself with dignity, and was garbed as became a member of the royal
family.

It was noticed that the young prince departed on his mission with
reluctance, though he received the request of the cacica as a command
which he must obey.  He led the Spaniards along the bank of a river,
and at noon they rested in a grove {185} of walnut-trees, where lunch
was spread.  After the meal was over, the guide took the quiver from
his shoulder, and drew out the arrows in it, one by one.  He looked
them all over thoughtfully, and the Spaniards gathered about to
admire them, for they were superior to any they had ever seen.  Some
were barbed with flint, and some with crystal, while the shafts of
all were highly polished and tipped with feathers.  At length he drew
forth an arrow dagger-pointed, though the barb was of flint.  This,
without a word, he plunged into his throat, and fell prostrate,
bleeding from a mortal wound.

The Spaniards were at first unable to conjecture the cause of this
action on the part of the youth; but it developed that, while he was
a favorite of the princess, he was also deeply attached to the
queen-mother, whom the Spaniards intended to kidnap.  As they could
succeed only through his aid, he resolved to extricate himself from
the perplexing situation in which he was placed by committing
suicide.  Thus the attempt to secure the queen-regent was frustrated,
for no one else could guide the Spaniards to her hiding-place.  De
Soto, it is said, mourned the death of the high-spirited youth; but
not {186} long after he confirmed the suspicions that chivalrous
savage had formed of his intentions by carrying away as a captive the
generous princess to whom he was so deeply in debt for inestimable
favors.




{187}

XIV

DE SOTO'S BEAUTIFUL CAPTIVE

1540

The generosity of the cacica was excessive, for the Spaniards lacked
nothing that her kingdom could supply.  When she learned from the
interpreters that De Soto cared for gold above all other things, she
told them that in a remote district of her territory there was a
large deposit of yellow and shining metal, and she thought it must be
that of which they were in search.  She hoped so, at least, and if it
proved to be, they had only to dig up and take away all they desired.
So she sent some Indians for the "precious metal," who returned a few
days later with as much as they could carry on their backs.  The
Spaniards, says their historian, did not have any acid, or
touchstone, for testing the metal; but it did not need an expert to
perceive that this was not gold the Indians had brought them, but an
{188} alloy of copper; and what they supposed, from the descriptions,
might be silver, proved to be nothing but mica and crystals of quartz.

The Spaniards were bitterly disappointed, but the princess was
grieved, and it was to console them that she gave permission for the
desecration of the royal sepulchres.  When De Soto and a retinue of
his captains visited the tombs of Talimico, they were surprised to
find them within an edifice a hundred paces in length and forty in
breadth.  The roof was of reeds, but lofty, and the entrances were
guarded by statues of wood excellently carved, and about twelve feet
in height.  They were probably effigies of the warriors who reposed
here, their mouldering remains contained in wooden chests, or
caskets, like those which Juan Ortiz was set to guard, in the distant
province governed by Ucita.

Besides the pearls, of which mention has been made already, there
were robes of dressed skins, valuable furs, and rich mantles made of
feathers and flax.  All these articles had been placed here by the
Indians in order that their chiefs and caciques, when they passed to
the unknown region above, might {189} carry with them the wealth they
possessed on earth.  Thus it will be seen that, whatever mistakes
their superstitions may have led them into, the Cofachiquis were
violating their most cherished traditions when they allowed the
Spaniards to ravish the graves of their great warriors.  This was
their Valhalla, their Pantheon, and around it were clustered memories
that must have been tender and sacred.

But even to this extent the generous nature of the cacica carried
her, in the desire to serve her guests and promote their welfare.
More than fourteen bushels of pearls were found in the sepulchres,
according to the historians, and though most of them had lost their
lustre by having been long buried, this fact did not detract from the
value of the gift.  The Spaniards were given permission to carry away
everything they found, and, base and perfidious to the last degree,
they so perverted the noble intention of the offer as to carry off
the cacica herself!

By the time the spoils had been divided, and the lustrous pearls
sifted out from those which had been injured by burial in the earth,
or by fire used in opening the shells that contained them, the
princess had {190} discovered the true nature of her visitors, and
meditated flight.  It was quite natural that she should have grown
cold and indifferent; but the Spaniards attributed the change to
distrust, or treachery, and when De Soto was told that she refused to
furnish guides and carriers for the army beyond the frontiers of her
province, he took prompt measures to secure her person.  It was his
custom, as we have seen, to insure the services and fidelity of
whatever people he was travelling among by seizing and holding in
durance their chief or leader; but in this instance the action was
hardly necessary as a precaution, and was assuredly a gross insult to
the friendly Cofachiquis.

"On May 3, 1540," wrote the Fidalgo of Elvas, "the governor set out
from Cutifachiqui [Cofachiqui], and, it being discovered that the
wish of the cacica was to leave the Christians, if she could, giving
them neither guides nor carriers, because of the outrages committed
upon the inhabitants (there never failing to be men of low degree
among the many who will put the lives of themselves and others in
jeopardy for some mean interest), the governor ordered that she
should be put under guard, and took her with him."

{191}

"This treatment was not a proper return for the hospitable welcome he
had received; but thus she was carried away, on foot, with her female
slaves.  This brought us service in all the places that we passed,
she ordering the Indians to come and take the loads from town to
town.  We travelled through her territories a hundred leagues, in
which, according to what we saw, she was greatly obeyed, whatsoever
she ordered being performed with diligence and efficiency."

This offence of De Soto has been condoned by some, with the remark
that he treated the princess with deference and bound her with
"silken chains," figuratively speaking; but she was a prisoner,
nevertheless, having been made one against her will, and in violation
of the most sacred rites of hospitality.  She was constantly guarded,
and her privacy invaded, though she was provided with a beautiful
palanquin and allowed the attendance of her serving-maids.  But
neither princess nor maidens were the same as before the advent of
the Spaniards; no longer the shy and fawnlike creatures who had
greeted the cavaliers with downcast eyes and murmured welcomes.  They
spoke but seldom, they no longer sang, nor wove {192} garlands for
their favorites, as formerly, for their hearts were heavy.  Silent
and sad, the beautiful cacica was borne along in her palanquin, on
the shoulders of her dejected warriors, while the maidens walked
sullenly by her side.  In this manner nearly three hundred miles were
travelled, the governor going he knew not whither, save that he still
sought for the yellow gold that had been the ruin of so many of his
countrymen.

The general direction of the march, after leaving the cacica's
capital, was north, and then northwest, across the present state of
Georgia.  The province of Achalaque, which the Spaniards reached
after seven days' travel, is supposed to have been the so-called
barren country of the Cherokees, and was "the poorest off for maize
of any that was seen in Florida.  The inhabitants subsisted on roots
that they dug in the wilds, and on the animals they destroyed with
their arrows."  Their poverty was such that, when the cacique
presented De Soto with two tanned deer-skins, he seemed to think it a
very great gift.  But the wild creatures of the woods were very
abundant, such as turkeys and prairie-hens, of which latter seven
hundred were presented to the Spaniards in a single village.

{193}

As the western boundaries of her province were approached, the cacica
grew nervous and uneasy, for she doubted the word of De Soto, that he
would release her on the confines of her dominion, and she was seen
to talk more than usual with her maidens.  Taking advantage of a
curve in the trail one day, as they were passing through a dense
forest, the captive princess suddenly sprang from the palanquin, and,
with her faithful females, hid in a thicket at the head of a ravine.
All search for them was fruitless, for when hunted up they scattered
like a covey of quail, and were quite as successful in concealing
themselves.  They were found and joined by a band of the cacica's
warriors, who had skulked through the forest for this very purpose,
and, though more than three hundred miles from their homes, finally
reached them in safety.  The cacica's departure was greatly lamented
by De Soto; not from any considerations of a sentimental nature, but
because she had taken with her, in her flight, besides two negro
slaves and a Barbary Moor, a petaca, or small chest of pearls, which,
never having been pierced or exposed to fire, were of extraordinary
value and beauty.

{194}

Pearls, however, were a "drug in the market" at that time and in the
circumstances which beset the Spaniards, having no value unless they
could be exchanged for provisions.  It is told of a foot-soldier
named Juan Terron, that, becoming tired of carrying a bag of
beautiful pearls which he had taken from one of the sepulchres, he
offered bag and contents, weighing more than six pounds, to a comrade
on horseback.

"Nay, nay, Juan Terron," said the trooper.  "Though I can carry them,
still you had better keep them yourself.  When next the governor
sends to Havana, you can purchase, with the half of them, the finest
horse in the island, and need no longer go afoot.  Six pounds of
pearls--verily, a king's ransom!"

"Whether they be so or no, here they go," exclaimed Terron, untying
the mouth of the bag and whirling it about his head, with the result
that all the pearls were scattered on the ground.  Most of them were
lost, as only thirty were recovered by the soldiers, who hastily
scrambled for them; and when it was seen how fine they were, their
former owner was bantered unmercifully.  He finally {195} became
sensible of his folly, especially after the governor had rebuked him
severely for his insensate act; but it gave rise to a saying in the
army, "There are no pearls for Juan Terron," which passed into a
proverb.

The two black runaways were recovered, but the lovely cacica and her
maids were never beheld by the Spaniards again.  As time passed, and
the toilful march still continued, apparently without end or aim,
many a sigh was sent after them by the weary soldiers, who thought
with regret of the prospects cast away by the governor when he turned
his back upon the land of pearls.  The thoughts of De Soto himself
were not divulged; but doubtless he felt he had made a mistake,
though his pride would not permit him to acknowledge it.

"He was an inflexible man, and dry of word," wrote one who was with
him at the time, "who, although he liked to know what the others all
thought and had to say, after he once said a thing he did not like to
be opposed; and as he ever acted as he thought best, all bent to his
will.  For, though it seemed an error to leave that country, when
another might have been found about it on which all the people could
have been {196} sustained until the crops had been made and the grain
gathered, there was none who would say a thing to him after it became
known that he had made up his mind."

Thus he marched on, grim and inflexible, regretting, perhaps, that he
had treated the cacica so harshly, though outwardly he gave no sign,
excusing himself on the grounds of expediency.  The next province
belonged to the cacique of Ichiaha, who sent word that he had
collected a great quantity of maize and mulberries for the Spaniards,
and would meet them with a retinue of warriors.  His country was
fertile and well watered, with beautiful valleys and extensive
savannas.  His maize-fields were seemingly boundless in extent, and
when his chief village was reached there were twenty barbacoas full
of the golden grain, which were placed at De Soto's disposal.

At the head of five hundred plumed and stately warriors, the cacique
met the Spaniards two miles from his village, which was set in a
valley among the hills.  It contained about three hundred houses, the
largest of which, the cacique's palace, was perched upon an
artificial mound surrounded by a spacious terrace.  Towards this
mound, after {197} fraternally greeting De Soto and his officers, the
chieftain ordered his warriors to lead the way.  As they approached
it they parted column, and the Spaniards marched between their ranks,
with banners flying and bugles blowing, to the quarters assigned them.

They remained here many days, during the month of June, in fact,
literally living on the "fat of the land."  "We found here," says one
of the company, "an abundance of lard, in calabashes, drawn like
olive-oil, which the inhabitants said was the fat of bears.  There
was likewise found much oil of walnuts, which, like the lard, was
clear and of good taste; and also a honey-comb, which the Christians
had never seen before in this country, nor saw they afterwards, nor
honey, nor bees."

The Indian huts proving too confined, a camp was pitched in a grove
of mulberry-trees between the hills, in front of which was a verdant
meadow, where the lean and famishing steeds were turned loose to
feast and recuperate.  While the men and horses were refreshing
themselves, De Soto was diligently inquiring for the gold-mines,
which were reputed to be in the hills or mountains of this province.
They lay, the {198} cacique informed him, about thirty miles to the
northward; but the intervening country was a mere wilderness, and the
mountains said to contain the mines were so rugged that no horse
could travel in that region.

By his advice, therefore, two sturdy soldiers were sent to explore,
on foot and accompanied by guides.  They were absent ten days, but
returned in safety, though without any gold, of which, however, they
thought they had discovered traces here and there.  What they brought
back with them was not gold, but ore of copper; thus again was the
governor disappointed.  The precious metal has been found in that
province in times more recent; but not in such quantities as De Soto
had hoped to discover it.  The natives then had a few articles, in
the shape of hatchets and "chopping-knives," of gold alloyed with
copper, but no ornaments or jewels.

Nearly all the streams of this province, and they were quite
numerous, abounded in the fresh-water mussels which yielded the
precious pearls.  The cacique of Ichiaha, one day, threw over De
Soto's broad shoulders a string of pearls a fathom in length.  Some
of them were as large as filbert-nuts, {199} and of perfect shape,
but had been injured by boring, with the aid of fire, in order that
they might be strung as necklaces.  If the governor desired more and
better pearls, said the cacique, he might seek them in the sepulchres
of his ancestors, where were countless thousands.

The governor replied, with an affectation of horror at the thought,
that he would never consent to such an act of desecration as
ravishing the royal tombs, but that he should like to see how the
pearls were obtained.  Struck by the consideration manifested by his
guest, the obliging cacique at once despatched forty large canoes to
fish for pearl-oysters during the night.  In the morning he and De
Soto repaired to the river-side, accompanied by their officers, and
there the Spaniards witnessed the operation of opening the oysters,
or mussels.  Fires had been made of hard wood, and upon their glowing
coals were placed the shell-fish brought ashore in the canoes.  They
were quickly opened by the heat, and from their gaping mouths the
pearls were taken out, some of them as large as peas, and presented
to De Soto.

After the cacique had gratified his guest {200} with this exhibition,
he invited him to his house, where a repast was set forth at which
the mussels were served in various dishes.  While the meal was in
progress, one of the soldiers at the lower end of the table uttered
an exclamation, and, taking something from his mouth, after showing
it to his companions, rose and went towards De Soto.  "See, my lord,"
he said.  "Here is a pearl that neither fire nor smoke has injured,
for I just now found it within an oyster I was eating."

"Truly, my man," answered the governor, "it is large, and white, and
beautiful.  In Spain, I doubt not, it would bring four hundred
ducats.  Save it till we have occasion to send to the Havana, and
there I will procure thee its value."

"Nay, my lord.  Allow me, rather, to present it to our lady
patroness, Doña Isabel, whom we all hold in great esteem."

"Not so," rejoined De Soto.  "While I appreciate thy generosity, my
son, I cannot allow thee to rob thyself.  Keep it, then, and I myself
will remit to the king his fifth part in thy stead."

Thus the soldier's liberal disposition brought him the regard of his
commander, {201} who, high-minded and generous himself, knew how to
appreciate worth in others.

Another incident, though a sad one, that occurred at this time,
emphasizes the fact that all the men of De Soto's command were
youthful, or in the prime of life, for it relates to one Juan Mateos,
who was the only man among them whose hair was gray.  While De Soto
and the cacique were inspecting the pearl-fisheries, gray-haired Juan
Mateos slipped into the thicket and cut a cane, with which, by the
aid of a line twisted from some flax, and an improvised hook, he went
fishing.  As he was sitting quietly on the bank, concealed in the
long grasses, one of the cavaliers named Luis Bravo darted his lance
at a small animal he saw a short distance away.  As ill-luck would
have it, the weapon missed the animal, but struck poor Juan Mateos in
the temple, killing him instantly.  Thus the Spaniards lost "Father
Juan"--as he was called on account of his gray hairs--the oldest man
in the army, but probably not more than fifty years of age at the
time of his death.

Having nearly exhausted the resources of this generous host, and,
very wisely, desiring to depart before he had wholly done so, {202}
De Soto announced his intention to proceed on his journey.  The
cacique of Ichiaha would have detained him, having conceived a great
liking for the governor; but it was then midsummer (the first week in
July, 1540), and a great distance yet remained to be traversed before
cold weather set in.  Whence he was going, and wherefore, De Soto
could not inform his friend; but doubtless his intention was to
describe a great circuit and make his winter quarters at Pensacola,
where the brigantines were instructed to meet him in the month of
October.  Hence he followed the banks of the Coosa River, and
constantly bore southwardly, on a westerly course, going farther and
farther from the Atlantic and towards the Gulf of Mexico.

The next province to Ichiaha was that of Acoste, the cacique of which
awaited the coming of De Soto in the great square of his chief town,
with more than fifteen hundred warriors.  He was fierce and warlike,
his braves were well armed and insolent of manner; but while the two
armies were confronting each other, some vagabond soldiers or
camp-followers began pillaging the huts, without giving a thought to
the possible {203} consequences.  The women who lived in the huts
raised an outcry, at which many of the braves seized their war-clubs
and set upon the vagabonds most lustily.  De Soto, at the time, was
well in advance of the main body, with a small retinue only.
Perceiving his peril, should the cacique's warriors become
exasperated and attack him, he sought to divert their attention by
himself falling upon the soldiers who had caused the disturbance and
beating them soundly.




{204}

XV

THE GREAT CHIEF, TUSCALOOSA

1540

The cacique of Acoste and his warriors greatly enjoyed the spectacle
of the governor beating his own men, being so diverted thereby that
they neglected to secure him a prisoner while he was in their power.
When they awoke to the fact, it was too late, for, meanwhile, De Soto
had sent a message to the main army, which came hurrying forward to
his rescue.  Then their positions were reversed, for the cacique
found himself a prisoner, together with his chiefs.  He was greatly
taken aback, and at first was disposed to be ugly; but when the
governor explained to him that it was his custom to honor every
cacique he met, by surrounding him with an armed guard, he became
quite tractable.  A message arrived from Ichiaha at this juncture,
informing him of what had occurred in that province, and {205} he
immediately gave orders for supplies of maize to be furnished the
Spaniards, at the same time assuring De Soto that he and his people
were entirely at his service.  He was then liberated, and he not only
calmed the ruffled feelings of his warriors, but assisted the
Spaniards in crossing the river, by furnishing them with rafts and
canoes.

The Spaniards were then in the province of Cosa, or Coosa, a name
which is now applied to a county of Alabama, through which,
doubtless, De Soto passed on his way to Pensacola.  It was a vast and
fertile province, also very populous, and nearly every night, during
several weeks, the Spaniards encamped at or near an Indian village,
the inhabitants of which received them hospitably, supplied them with
provisions, and furnished carriers from one place to another, so that
there was no need of demanding either, and no conflicts occurred by
the way, of any kind whatever.

Such a rich and fruitful country the Spaniards had not seen in many a
day.  The fields of Indian-corn were of unknown extent, their green
billows sweeping away to the horizon on every side, and there were
beans and pumpkins, mulberries, wild plums, and {206} grapes, in
great variety.  In the centre of the province was the village of
Coosa, which was reached by the army about the last of July.  The
cacique had sent numerous and friendly messages to De Soto, and "came
out to receive him at the distance of two bow-shots from the town,"
borne in a litter on the shoulders of four chiefs, and surrounded by
many attendants playing upon flutes, singing, and dancing.  Over his
shoulders he wore a rich robe of marten-skins, and on his head a
diadem with plumes.  He was a young man, with a winning and
expressive countenance, and behind him marched at least a thousand
warriors, tall and stately men, with feathers adorning their
head-dresses.  When arrived opposite the governor he made a little
speech of welcome, and together they set out for the village, the
Indian chieftain in his palanquin and De Soto riding alongside on his
war-horse.

Coosa was advantageously located for a colony, though a long distance
from the sea-coast.  De Soto was urged by his new friend to remain
there, but he was anxious to meet Maldonado at the bay of Pensacola,
and, though deeply sensible of the cacique's kindness, felt
constrained to refuse his offer {207} of territory.  He remained with
him twenty days, and when he departed took the cacique with him, an
"honorable hostage," but actually a prisoner.  As the narrators are
divided on this point, we would allow De Soto, again, the benefit of
the doubt; but two of them are agreed that the cacique was
constrained to go against his will.  One, his own secretary, says:
"The Indians went off and left their chief in the power of the
Christians, with some principal men, and the Spaniards went out to
round them up, and they took many, and they put them in iron collars
and chains.  And verily, according to the testimony of eye-witnesses,
it was a grievous thing to see.  But God failed not to remember every
evil deed; nor were they left unpunished, as this history will tell."
"When they reached the frontiers of his territory," says the Fidalgo
of Elvas, "the chief was released; but he went in anger and in tears,
because the governor would not give up a sister of his that they
took, and because they had taken him so far from his country."

Another account, and that which we would rather believe, is to the
effect that the cacique of Coosa went with De Soto to punish a {208}
refractory sub-chief, who was disposed to transfer his allegiance to
a more powerful ruler named Tuscaloosa.  This redoubtable chieftain,
whose name, in Choctaw, is said to mean the great Black Warrior,
governed the territory now chiefly comprised in the states of Alabama
and Mississippi.  He was probably a Choctaw, and the most haughty and
warlike of his tribe.  He had heard, through his scouts and runners,
of the arrivals on his frontier, and sent his son to meet them.
Though only eighteen years of age, this youth was taller than any
Spaniard in the army, agile and strong.  He was kindly received by De
Soto, who entertained him at a banquet and gave him a quantity of
beads, as a present for his father.  When he returned to Tuscaloosa,
he was accompanied by Luis de Moscoso, master of the camp, and
fifteen cavalry, who were to observe what they could and report to De
Soto, who followed leisurely after and encamped in a grove two
leagues from the cacique's town.

Apprised by a courier from De Soto that the Spaniards were
approaching, Chief Tuscaloosa took his stand on the crest of a hill
which commanded a wide and beautiful prospect, and, seated on a
concave block of {209} wood, which was his chair of state, or throne,
awaited the coming of the strangers.  Around him were his chief
commanders, to the number of a hundred, while on the plain below lay
his army, containing many thousand men.  By his side stood a young
warrior, who held aloft a lance, upon which was supported a banner of
dressed deer-skin, dyed in bright colors and extended by crossed
sticks to the shape and size of a Spanish buckler.

Tuscaloosa was a man of commanding appearance, and, though more than
seven feet in height, was so symmetrically proportioned that he might
have been chosen as a model of manly beauty.  He was taller than any
of his people by more than a foot; but, though his shoulders were
broad and massive, his waist was slender, while his hands and feet
were small and well moulded.  His eyes and hair were black as coal;
his face was expressive and intelligent; but his mouth was large,
with teeth ivory-white and fanglike, giving him the appearance of a
cannibal.

When the cavaliers attending De Soto pranced before him, forcing
their horses to curvet and caracole, he paid no more attention to
them than the Inca of Peru had {210} bestowed upon their commander
himself in the environs of Cassamarca.  He remained unmoved, hardly
deigning to give them a glance; but when De Soto approached he
extended his hand in welcome.  He thanked him for the gifts he had
sent, declaring that he esteemed them the more highly because they
were from one whom he "regarded as a brother."  The two conversed
awhile, then, hand-in-hand, wended their way to the village, where
quarters were assigned the troops, and a house given to the governor
next to that occupied by the chieftain.  There was no lack of
hospitality in Tuscaloosa's town, but the coldness and hauteur of the
cacique kept De Soto constantly on guard.  He cautioned his captains
to post their sentinels discreetly and not for an instant relax their
vigilance, as he felt certain the cacique meditated treachery.  He
had observed him in close and frequent converse with his sub-chiefs,
and had noticed that warriors were gathering from every quarter.

After remaining two days in the village, De Soto gave the order to
march, and with him went Tuscaloosa, either voluntarily or as a
hostage.  The town of Talise, or that {211} first entered by the
Spaniards, was on the frontier; forty or fifty miles farther lay the
capital, Tuscaloosa; and still farther, by several days' march, was
Mauvila, his great stronghold.  Whether the cacique went along a
prisoner or not, he was mounted on a horse and accompanied the
governor unfettered of limb or movement.  Considerable difficulty was
experienced in finding a steed sufficiently strong to bear his mighty
frame; but finally he was placed upon a pack-horse, the sturdiest
beast in the troop, and, while his feet nearly touched the ground, he
rode proudly, though fearsomely, at the head of the cavalcade.  One
of the governor's gifts to the cacique was a voluminous robe, scarlet
in color, and a mantle to match, which, together with the chieftain's
gigantic size and lofty plumes, made him "the observed of all
observers."  He might have been pardoned for indulging in a feeling
of pride, even of exultation, for he out-matched De Soto in size and
gorgeous garments, while in his heart he believed he was leading him
to destruction.  He coveted those wonderful animals, the horses, the
armor and the weapons of the Spaniards, and after Mauvila was reached
he determined to effect their capture.

{212}

Tuscaloosa town, like Talise, was built on a peninsula formed by the
windings of a river supposed to be the Alabama.  It was a place of
strength, but not so strong as Mauvila, which, though it stood on a
plain, was fortified with palisados.  A short stay was made there,
but only long enough to cross the river in canoes and on rafts
furnished by the Indians.  Thence the route lay through a very
populous country, dotted with hamlets and swarming with warriors who,
loosely gathered in troops and detached bands though they were, yet
seemed converging towards a common centre, which was Mauvila.  A few
hundred only accompanied Tuscaloosa and the Spaniards; but the
chieftain was proudly confident in his strength, for he knew that at
a signal the fields and the forests would be alive with his hardy
warriors, who by sheer force of numbers would overcome the Spaniards
and destroy them utterly.

It was, perhaps, difficult for the grim cacique to restrain his wild
braves, scattered as they were throughout the wilderness, and though
he desired to commit no overt act until fully prepared to carry out
the scheme of destruction in its entirety, a few of the {213}
Spaniards disappeared, having probably been murdered by Indians in
ambush.  Two soldiers were missing one morning, and Tuscaloosa was
asked if he knew what had become of them.

"Do _I_ know?" he growled.  "Why should I know?  I have people of my
own to care for.  Why do you ask me about yours?  Did I ask you to
place them in my charge?  I am not their keeper.  Look for them
yourself."

The Spaniards looked, but in vain.  The missing soldiers never
answered at roll-call, nor were they heard of again.  De Soto's
suspicions were confirmed by several circumstances on the march, and
he exchanged hard words with Tuscaloosa, who finally became sullen
and refused to speak after he had been taxed with treachery, but
continued to supply the Spaniards with provisions and carriers,
though acceding to their requisitions with evident impatience.

It was plain to the governor that the cacique was anticipating his
arrival at Mauvila, and could scarce contain himself until the town
was reached.  It lay above the confluence of the Alabama and
Tombigbee rivers, less than a hundred miles from Pensacola.  What the
exact distance was {214} De Soto did not know, but he and his
soldiers realized that they were nearing the projected rendezvous
with Maldonado, and were already looking forward to a period of rest,
as well as to news of their loved ones in Havana and Spain.

For, in the bay of Pensacola, Maldonado was to meet them with the
brigantines, in the month of October.  That month had already
arrived, as it was on the 18th that they reached the town of Mauvila.
After a few days here, devoted to rest and recuperation, they hoped
to strike directly southward for the gulf.  Already, they imagined,
they could feel the sea-breezes kiss their cheeks, hear the roaring
of the surf, and the cries of sea-birds as they skimmed the waves.





{215}

XVI

DESPERATE ENCOUNTER AT MAUVILA

1540

Mauvila, the cacique Tuscaloosa's stronghold, was more like a
fortress than a town.  It contained eighty or a hundred houses; but
they were huge, barrack-like structures, capable of holding from five
hundred to a thousand people each, and were surrounded by an immense
wall made of tree-trunks planted in the ground, wattled with vines,
and plastered together with mud.  Square towers, with platforms
inside for fighting-men, rose above the wall at intervals of fifty
paces or so, and it was pierced with numerous loop-holes, through
which darts and arrows might be discharged.

As De Soto viewed this rude fortress, which seemed erected as a
citadel for final defence, he acknowledged to himself that nothing
short of artillery could breach its woven walls, and that it would be
next to {216} impossible to carry it by assault.  He hoped there
would be no occasion for attempting such a thing; but as it is a
soldier's duty to consider every contingency, he looked Mauvila over
with a critical eye.  He noted that there were but two gates, or
entrance-ways, and these were strongly defended; while outside the
walls the ground had been cleared of all trees, and even shrubs, so
that, for more than a musket-shot around the town, there was no spot
in which an enemy could hide.

Sentinels were posted on the walls, and as De Soto (with his
advance-guard only, comprising about a hundred men) approached the
eastern gateway, troops of warriors swarmed forth to greet him.  They
were all fighting-men, and fully armed; but grim-visaged war was
skilfully masked by bands of native musicians, lustily pounding
wooden drums and evoking shrill sounds from Indian fifes, while
bevies of graceful dancing-girls capered around and among them.

The warriors deployed on either side the gateway, while Tuscaloosa
led the way within, the reluctant governor still by his side, but
with suspicions all aroused.  His martial instinct sounded the alarm;
but though a scout whom he had sent in advance sought {217} his side
and reported that a dark and treacherous plot was brewing, he was
compelled by circumstances to go with the chief.  Ten thousand
warriors were already assembled within the town, the scout informed
him, the pick of Tuscaloosa's fighting-men, and armed to the teeth.
They were concealed in the largest houses, which, he said, were
veritable arsenals, filled with weapons of every sort.  If the
governor would look around him, he would see that, while the streets
were alive with men-of-arms, there was hardly a single woman or
child--in a word, scarcely a non-combatant--left within the walls.
These had been strengthened, the towers filled with armed men, and
quivers full of arrows hung at convenient stations.

Never before, perhaps, had De Soto walked deliberately into such a
trap, and prepared, too, by one whom he already suspected.  Still, he
could not do else than dissemble; and when the cacique, with a grim
smile that bared his cannibal fangs, indicated one of the houses as
quarters for the governor and his officers, he thanked him
courteously.  He even consented to the tethering of their steeds and
the encamping of the troops at a distance outside the walls, though
he knew {218} that this division of his army, separating officers
from their horses and both from the main body of foot and cavalry,
might insure their swift destruction.

Having disposed his guests to his satisfaction, the cacique
dismounted, and was about to depart, when De Soto halted him with a
request that he remain and share his quarters, also the noonday meal,
which would soon be ready.  Drawing himself up to his full height,
and wrapping around his burly form the scarlet robe which the
governor had given him, Tuscaloosa replied, with a snarl: "I have had
enough of your company; I am tired of walking and of riding.  This is
my own land, and not any of it is yours.  So, go you in peace, and
when you will; but do not think that I, Tuscaloosa, shall go with you
out of my own country.  I shall stay in my stronghold."  With these
words, or others to their purport, the haughty chieftain strode away
and entered a house which had been observed to be filled with Indians
armed with bows and arrows.

The governor bit his lip with vexation; but he was, at the moment,
helpless, for the main body of the army, including many of the
cavalry and all the infantry, was yet at {219} a distance.  Captain
Luis de Moscoso, master of the camp, had command of the rear-guard,
and was responsible for its dilatory movements.  He had said to the
governor, that morning, that, since the Indians were so
evil-disposed, it would be better to camp in the woods, to which De
Soto had answered: "I am impatient of sleeping out, and purpose to
lodge in the town."  And he had his way, as he always had it, with
the result that we have noted.  While Moscoso and the main body were
lagging behind in the forest, the governor was being consumed with
anxiety.  At any moment the trap might be sprung, the fire-brand be
thrown, that would explode the mine beneath his feet.

Yet, with a calm countenance, he ordered his baggage taken to
quarters and dinner prepared.  It had been his custom to have the
cacique at meals with him, as well as within sight all the time.
When dinner was announced he sent the interpreter, Juan Ortiz, to
call him, but he was not allowed to enter the house in which the
cacique had concealed himself, though a young warrior promised to
give him the message.  After a while of waiting, De Soto sent again,
and, receiving no satisfactory reply, despatched {220} Ortiz a third
time on his errand.  This time, though he was again halted at the
door of the house, he shouted so loud that all within might hear:
"Tell the chief, Tuscaloosa, to come forth; for the food is on the
table, and his excellency is tired of waiting."

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth than an Indian brave burst
through the doorway, and, shaking his fists menacingly at Ortiz,
exclaimed furiously: "Who are these robbers, these vagabonds, who
keep calling to my chief, 'Tastalusa come out, come out!' as if he
were one of them?  By the Sun, our god, and the Moon, his wife, such
insolence cannot longer be borne!  Come out, brothers, come out, and
let us cut them to pieces!"

His eyes flashed fire, he frothed at the mouth; but he may have meant
nothing more than mere bravado.  Still, when an Indian behind him
placed a bow with arrows in his hand, he threw back his cloak of
marten-skin, which hung over one shoulder, and made as if to use the
weapons instantly.  Fixing an arrow on the string, he drew it to its
head, and was about to let fly at a group of Spaniards gathered in
the square.  In doing this he exposed his naked side, and Baltasar de
Gallegos, a cavalier who had come with {221} Ortiz, gave him such a
gash with his sword that it was laid open in a gaping wound, through
which his life-blood gushed in a crimson flood.

He fell dead on the spot; but an avenger appeared in the person of
his son, a noble-looking youth, who sent six or seven arrows at
Gallegos as fast as he could speed them.  Seeing that they glanced
harmless from his armor, he rained blows from his bow upon the
helmeted head of the cavalier, with such force that the blood ran
down his forehead.  But he was soon laid low beside his father, with
two thrusts of the sword, and the dazed Gallegos retreated with what
speed he could.

At the same instant, as if at a preconcerted signal, a terrible
war-whoop burst from ten thousand throats, and the concealed warriors
poured forth into the streets.  They attacked the Spaniards
furiously, giving them scant time to seize their arms, and cutting
off the cavalry from their horses, which were tethered outside the
walls.

All within the town ran for the gates, and the governor was by no
means a laggard in the race, though, encumbered by his armor as he
was, he fell twice or thrice before he {222} reached his horse.
Leaping to the saddle and cutting loose the reins, he shouted to the
soldiers: "Into the open, sons!--into the open!  Draw the heathen
away from the walls and then make a stand and fall upon them!"  Some
of the troopers followed him, and a little band was gathered; but
some others were not so fortunate, for, unable to gain their mounts,
they lost their horses, as they were shot to death with arrows, and
most of them lost their lives.

De Soto received a severe wound early in the action, an arrow having
struck him in the thigh; but, though unable to sit in his saddle, and
compelled to fight standing in his stirrups, he continued in active
conflict nine long hours, during which time the battle raged
unceasingly.  His wound was very painful; but he ignored it in the
heat of battle, and his concern for himself was swallowed up in that
for his men.  Among those killed that day were his two nephews,
Carlos Enriquez and Diego de Soto.  Both were shot with Indian
arrows, the one in the eye and the other in the neck.

Having drawn many of the savages out into the plain, De Soto turned
upon them with his cavaliers and inflicted great slaughter {223}
before they could regain the gates.  The survivors retreated
precipitately within the walls, and, shutting the gates, greeted the
Spaniards with howls of defiance and derision.  They considered
themselves safe from attack, within their impregnable stronghold,
and, having secured nearly all the baggage of the command, which had
been brought in by the carriers, they proceeded to divide the
plunder.  As fast as the carriers came in, they had relieved them of
their burdens, which they took inside the walls; then they broke
their chains, and, placing weapons in their hands, sent them to join
Mauvila's defenders.  In the midst of the tumult, the advance of the
rear-guard, under Moscoso, came up, and, when all had arrived, a
cordon was formed about the doomed stronghold, through which it was
next to impossible for the invested force to break.  As the fortress
was well provisioned, the beleaguered Indians did not concern
themselves as to the immediate future, but seemed to have resolved to
await the dispersion of the Spaniards.  Then they would sally forth
and fall upon them in the forest, by their great numbers overcoming
any advantage the strangers might have as to weapons and armor.

{224}

But they did not understand those iron-hearted men of Spain, who
never retired in defeat, who ever fought on to a victory.  The
savages had made it impossible for them to retire from the field,
since they held their baggage, which contained, not alone all their
surplus armor and clothing, their plunder of pearls, medicines,
bandages for binding up wounds, and surgical instruments, but also
many swords and arquebuses, which the careless soldiers had forced
the porters to carry when weary with their weight.

Moreover, it was awesomely told De Soto that, in the hurry and
confusion of the retreat, a small body of men had been left behind in
the house he had occupied.  There were five halberdiers and three
cross-bow-men of the governor's guard, besides a friar, a priest, and
two Indian slaves.  These were in peril, and unless promptly succored
would certainly be slain.  Arms and equipment De Soto might,
perchance, leave behind, but never a man of his command so long as
there was hope that his life might be saved.  Then, doubtless, the
governor wished for the one piece of artillery which he had left with
the cacique of Cofaqui, for with it he might have battered the walls
and opened a breach {225} through which to rush to the rescue of his
comrades.

But rescued they must be--they should be--with the falconet or
without it.  He circled the walls in vain, looking for a weak place
or any kind of an opening.  Then he drew rein just out of bowshot
from the eastern gate.  "We must storm it," he sternly said.  "One
hundred with bucklers and battle-axes, one hundred with lance and
sword.  On, my sons!  Santiago! and at them!"

Then at the gate he led them--a human battering-ram.  Nothing could
withstand the onset of those steel-cased cavaliers.  Protected by
their bucklers, they wielded the ponderous battle-axes with such
effect that the gate went down with a crash.

Into the gap they poured tumultuously, shouting their battle-cries,
slashing and lancing all who opposed, and in the midst of showers of
arrows that glanced from their armor like hail.  Not all escaped,
however, for the savages had found their vulnerable points, and shot
at their faces and necks, as well as at their horses from beneath as
they passed over those who were overthrown.  The house was reached
and the inmates rescued just in the nick of time, for the {226}
Indians had removed the roof and were shooting their arrows at the
little group of defenders huddled within.  The rescue effected, the
troopers fought their way back to the fields, carrying their comrades
with them and inflicting such slaughter by the way that the Indians
finally paused, aghast.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF MAUVILA]

Hundreds had fallen, but the end was not yet.  At the command of De
Soto, the village was set on fire, and scarcely anything within it
escaped the devouring flames.  Constructed of dry wood and grass,
that burned like tinder, the houses and towers were quickly consumed,
and with them all they contained, including the baggage of the army
as well as the brave defenders of Mauvila.  Maddened by their
sufferings, choked by the volumes of smoke that swept the streets,
and scorched by the flames, the Indians broke down the walls and made
for the fields; but, again and again, the Spaniards drove them back.

The carnage was horrible; the slain lay in heaps, in windrows, in
masses, mingled with charred timbers and the burning wreckage of the
town.  The Indians fought to the bitter end, and if one escaped it
was not by mercy of the Spaniards, who ranged around the fallen walls
like demons incarnate.  The {227} last of the warriors seen to fall
was a gigantic savage, who perished by his own hand.  He had been the
centre of a group which, fighting with fury and despair, had been
crushed out of existence by the Spaniards.  All save himself had
fallen, and, in a dazed way realizing this, he sprang to the rampart,
intending to leap over and escape.  But, seeing his retreat cut off
by the soldiers, waiting like crocodiles beneath for him to fall into
their jaws, he snatched a bow-string and hung himself from the limb
of a tree that projected over the wall.

That intrepid warrior was the last Indian seen in the town, either in
fight or flight.  The dead and the wounded numbered nearly three
thousand.  The Spaniards lost eighty men and forty horses, and among
them counted up seven hundred wounds, which there was but a single
surgeon to dress, and he unskilled.  What became of Cacique
Tuscaloosa could not be learned, but he was never seen by the
Spaniards after he entered the house in which the battle began.  The
body of his son, covered with wounds, was found in a field; but the
gigantic chieftain disappeared as utterly as if swallowed up by the
flames that devoured two thousand {228} of his warriors.  More than a
thousand were said to have perished in a single building, having been
suffocated by the smoke.

Whether Chief Tuscaloosa perished with them, or whether he survived
that day of disaster to his tribe and in some other part of his broad
domain ruled afterwards the remnant of his people, is not known; but
his proud name will never be dissociated from the land in which he
lived.




{229}

XVII

DE SOTO'S FATAL DECISION

1541

The Spaniards had arrived at Mauvila, or Mabila (which, no doubt, was
the Indian name for Mobile), on October 18th, and, says De Soto's
secretary, Rodrigo Ranjel, "after the end of the battle as described
they rested there until November 14th, caring for their wounds and
their horses.  Up to that time the total deaths, from the time the
governor and his forces entered the land of Florida, were one hundred
and two Christians--and not all, to my thinking, in true repentance."
Further, he says: "They killed three thousand of the vagabonds,
without counting many others who were wounded and whom they
afterwards found dead in the cabins along the road.  Whether the
chief were alive or dead was never known; but the son they found
thrust through with a lance."

{230}

The battle of Mauvila was a crucial event with De Soto, for he lost
more than men and horses, plunder and ammunitions: he lost hope, and,
in a certain sense, he lost courage.  Though he was not animated by
the highest of motives hitherto, yet his invincible spirit, his
dauntless bravery, compel our admiration.  But after the terrible
conflict at Mauvila we cannot but wonder at the obstinacy of the man
in persisting in a course which every one in the army but himself
recognized as criminally wrong.

While resting in Tuscaloosa's territory, endeavoring to repair his
losses in some measure, waiting for the wounded to recover or die, he
received the information that Maldonado had arrived at Pensacola with
supplies and reinforcements.  Such gladsome tidings, coming to him in
the midst of dire discouragements and perplexities, could not but
have given him the greatest satisfaction and renewed in his heart the
long-deferred hope of establishing that colony which it was his
intention to found in Florida.  The bay of Pensacola was then but a
seven days' journey, or less than a hundred miles, distant from
Mauvila, and the soldiers naturally expected that his next move would
be in that direction.  {231} The general course of their route from
Coosa had been southwest, and a continuation of it would have brought
them to the gulf.  The battle with Tuscaloosa's warriors was only an
episode of the long journey, which, instead of frustrating their
intention, should have emphasized the necessity for meeting the ships
and securing supplies, even were the search for gold to be continued.

Nothing was further from the governor's intentions than to abandon
this search, notwithstanding the fact that, after more than a year,
devoted to toilsome marches and persistent seeking, no trace of the
precious metal had been found.  It was a reasonable assumption, then,
that further search would be worse than useless, and this view was
adopted by the soldiers generally, who, in discussing the situation
among themselves, agreed that, the bay of Pensacola once arrived at,
they would take the first opportunity that presented itself for
leaving the country.  There were still other lands, such as Peru and
Mexico, where gold had already rewarded adventurers with great
wealth, and which had been obtained with one-tenth the toil and
fighting they had experienced.

No one could doubt their loyalty to the {232} governor; no one could
charge that they had not endured patiently and accepted without
complaint the severe trials that had been their portion.  But, while
these dauntless spirits were not in the strictest sense disheartened,
they saw that nothing was to be gained by continually fighting
half-naked savages and wandering about aimlessly over a country that
displayed no evidence of wealth, either in the accumulations of the
people or in its natural resources.

Now, the information received by the governor respecting the arrival
of Maldonado was conveyed to him privately, through the interpreter
Ortiz, whom he cautioned to keep it secret.  Rumors, however, reached
the soldiers, and when De Soto talked with his officers of his plan
for continuing the exploration after reaching the coast, they
informed him that in all probability he would be left without
support.  This intelligence came to De Soto like a revelation, for up
to that time his men had yielded unquestioning obedience to his
slightest wishes, and he could not believe them capable of thwarting
him in any event.  So he disguised himself and went stealthily about
the camp.  The upshot of it was that he returned to his {233}
quarters with the worst news that he had heard confirmed, and from
that moment was a changed individual.

He seemed to forget that these men, comprising Spaniards of every
rank, from the humblest soldier to the proudest hidalgo, had embarked
on this expedition at his own solicitations, had ventured their
entire fortunes, whether large or small, had suffered extreme
privations, witnessed the deaths of a hundred companions and the
sweeping away of all their accumulations, with hardly a murmur of
complaint.

He thought only of his own terrible losses: of the fortune he had
spent in the equipment, of the renown and dignities he had gained,
and hoped to gain, trampled, as it were, in the dust; of the return
to Cuba, not only penniless, but an object of hatred and contempt.
In a sentence, then, he resolved to turn his back on Pensacola and
safety, "because the pearls he wished to send to Cuba for show, that
their fame might raise the desire of coming to Florida, had been
lost, and he feared that, hearing of him without seeing either gold
or silver, or other thing of value from that land, it would acquire
such a reputation that no one would {234} be found to go there when
men should be wanted."

Thus wrote one of the annalists who was with him, the anonymous
Fidalgo of Elvas, who further says: "So he determined to send no news
of himself until he should have discovered a rich country."

Yes, that was his resolve: to set his face again to the wilderness;
to forego the luxury of rest and refreshment the ships would afford;
to deprive himself of news from his wife and his government in Cuba;
and all that his stubborn pride might not be wounded.

The stern, invincible nature of the man, De Soto, is displayed in
this determination; but also, alas! his supreme selfishness.  He
thought only of himself, of his blasted hopes, his unsatisfied
aspirations; but to the other nine hundred entities comprising his
command he gave, apparently, scant consideration.  They, too, had
honorable aspirations, hopes, desires; they had wives and children,
whose hearts were yearning for some news of them; they had fought,
and freely shed their blood, that their commander might realize his
ambitions; yet they were ignored.

It was in this spirit that he gave the order {235} to leave Mauvila
and march northward, instead of southward--into the unknown
wilderness, instead of towards the coast and the ships.  Pursued by
this dæmon of unrest and unsatisfied ambition, he continued to wander
thereafter, until a year later he met the messenger of death.  That
the soldiers murmured when ordered to march away from the haven of
their desires, is not to be wondered at; that they did not mutiny is
more surprising.  But they did not dare to oppose their stern
commander, who, though he might be irrational, even eccentric to the
verge of insanity, yet represented the crown and their king.  Silent
and sullen were they, as they stored their wallets with two days'
provisions of toasted maize and took their places in the ranks--those
decimated ranks.  Heavy must have been the hearts of the soldiers as
they thought upon the comrades who had fallen.

"I have wondered many times," wrote the historian, Oviedo, more than
three hundred years ago, "at the venturesomeness, stubbornness, and
persistency, or firmness--to use a better word for the way these
baffled conquerors kept on, from one toil to another, and then to
another still greater; {236} from one danger to many others: here
losing one companion, there three or four; going from bad to worse,
without learning from experience.

"O wonderful God!  That they should have been so blinded and dazed by
a greed so uncertain and by such vain discourses as Hernando de Soto
was able to utter to those deluded soldiers, whom he brought to a
land which he had never seen, nor put foot into, and where three
other leaders, more experienced than he, had ruined themselves....

"O wicked men, O devilish greed, O bad consciences!  O unfortunate
soldiers!  That ye should not have understood the perils ye were to
encounter, how wasted would be your lives, and without rest your
soul!"

How true the words of the moralist, coming down to us through the
centuries which have intervened between his time and ours!  Yet those
men of action did not pause to moralize.  They could not have scanned
their deeds as they transpired, for, had they done so, we should not
have to record such things of them as are shown in the preceding
pages.  "From the moment that De Soto discovered the purpose of his
men to leave him, once were the coast attained," {237} writes the
most entertaining of his biographers, "he became a moody, irritable,
discontented man.  He no longer pretended to strike out any grand
undertaking, but, stung with secret disappointment, went recklessly
wandering from place to place, apparently without order or object, as
if careless of time and life, and only anxious to finish his
existence."[1]

Five days of marching through a fertile country, pleasant even in
November, took them to the frontiers of another province, where they
found, gathered on the farther bank of a deep, wide, and rapid river,
fifteen hundred warriors to oppose them.  These were commanded by a
cacique who had heard of the atrocities committed in Mauvila, and who
replied to De Soto's proffer of peace: "Nay, war is what we want, a
war of fire and of blood."

"So be it," muttered De Soto.  "We come as men of peace, but war is
our vocation."

It would have fared ill with the cacique could the governor have
reached him then; but twelve days elapsed before the stream was
crossed, owing to the necessity for building piraguas.  During that
time the {238} opposing skirmishers were incessantly in conflict; but
when, after infinite toil, the army had been ferried over the river,
short work, indeed, was made of the Indians.  After seizing and
sacrificing a friendly native, who had been sent over with a message
of peace, the savages fled to a fort of palisados and the Spaniards
took possession of their village.

They were now in the country of the Chickasaws, and here they
established themselves in cantonment for the winter of 1540-1541.
Following his invariable custom, De Soto tried to draw the cacique of
the Chickasaws from his retreat, sending him as a bait some roasted
pork, having sacrificed a few of his precious swine for the purpose.
The chief and his warriors ate the meat with relish, finding it so
delicious that they could not resist the temptation to appropriate
such of the swine as they could secure by prowling about the camp at
night.  The governor had not intended to go to this extreme of
hospitality, and two Indians caught in the act of stealing hogs were
by his orders summarily shot, while another thief had his hands cut
off as a warning.

The cacique "appeared grieved that they {239} had given offence, and
glad that they were punished"; but when two Spanish soldiers entered
his house during his absence, and stole several marten-skins, he
insisted that the same punishment should be inflicted upon them.  The
governor, being then and thereafter in stern and melancholy mood,
assented to the justice of this proposition, and condemned the
soldiers to death.  In vain his officers and chaplains begged him to
be merciful.  The culprits were led forth to be executed, when at
this juncture a party of Indians arrived in the village.  They came
to complain of these very soldiers; but Juan Ortiz, the only
interpreter, told the governor that the cacique desired him to pardon
them, and, as a favor to the savage, he did so.  Ortiz then informed
the embassy that the real offenders were in prison, and would be
punished with great severity.

Whether on account of this double-dealing or not, the Indians soon
displayed unmistakable signs of hostility, and De Soto warned
Camp-master Moscoso to be constantly on his guard.  Twice, already,
Moscoso had failed his commander at a critical moment, and a third
time he was to prove unreliable, for, one dark and stormy night, when
the {240} north wind was shrieking through the village, the Indians
stealthily passed the sentinels and gained the central square.  Above
the howling of the tempest rose the shrill war-whoop and rolling of
barbaric drums.  Suddenly the whole hamlet burst into a blaze, for
the savages had shot fire-tipped arrows into the thatched roofs of
straw, and also lighted them with torches, which they had carried
concealed in earthen pots.

Fanned by the gale, the fire swept the village, driving the
astonished Spaniards from their shelters and into the arms of their
relentless foes.  They were dazed by the swiftness of the assault,
scorched by the flames, and half suffocated by the smoke; but they
fought like fiends, grasping the first weapons they could lay hands
upon.

De Soto himself leaped forth with less than half his armor on, but,
sword in hand, mounted his horse and dashed into the midst of the
savage throng.  Seeing in front of him an Indian of gigantic frame,
whom he took for the cacique, he charged at him with his lance, upon
which he leaned with all his weight to give force to the blow.  As he
did so the saddle slipped, having been put on hastily and without
being girthed, and he {241} fell headlong to the ground.  The savage
leaped upon him, and the next moment would probably have been the
governor's last, had not a dozen troopers dashed to his rescue, and
with lance and sabre held the Indians off till he had gained his feet
and remounted his horse.  Then, without a moment's hesitation, he
spurred into the thickest of the fight again.

Though more than forty Spaniards perished in the flames or at the
hands of the Indians, victory eventually crowned De Soto's efforts,
and the savages were vanquished.  They had accomplished their chief
design, however, which was to secure possession of the swine, for,
shut within a thatched enclosure, nearly the whole herd met death in
the flames, and for several days thereafter the Indians had a surfeit
of roast pork.

Fifty horses, also, were destroyed that night, some by fire and
others by the Indian arrows, so that when dawn revealed to the
Spaniards the extent of their losses they found themselves in a worse
plight than at Mauvila.  They were houseless, almost without food or
raiment, and as the weather was extremely cold, their condition was
pitiable.



[1] Theodore Irving, in _The Conquest of Florida_.




{242}

XVIII

HOW THE MISSISSIPPI WAS CROSSED

1541

The fatal night of the fire was on March 4, 1541.  That evening,
after making his rounds, the governor had proclaimed aloud to his
men: "To-night is an _Indian night_.  I shall sleep armed and have my
horse saddled; and do all ye cavaliers the same."  It was well that
he did so, and would have been better for all had they followed his
example; but, by the plight in which the fire left them, they paid
dearly for their carelessness.

"If by good luck any had been able to save a garment until then,"
says the Fidalgo, "it was there destroyed.  Many remained naked, not
having had time to catch up their skin dresses.  And in that place
they suffered greatly from cold, the only relief being in great
fires, and they passed the long night in turning, without the power
to sleep; for {243} as one side of a man would warm, the other would
freeze.  Some contrived mats of dried grass, sewed together; and many
who laughed at this expedient were afterwards compelled to do the
like.  The Christians, in fact, were left so broken up that, what
with the want of saddles and arms which had been destroyed, had the
Indians returned the second night they might, with little effort,
have been overpowered."

"And that you may know, reader," wrote Oviedo, the historian, "what
sort of a life these Spaniards led, Rodrigo Ranjel, an eye-witness,
says that among many others who were enduring great hardships in this
undertaking, he saw a knight, one Don Antonio Osorio, brother of the
lord marquis of Astorga, wearing a short garment made of the blankets
[buffalo-hides] of that country, torn at the sides, his skin showing,
bare-headed, barefooted, without hose or shoes, a buckler at his
back, a naked sword in his hand.  And the stuff of which he was made,
and his illustrious lineage, made him endure this toil, amid heavy
frosts and cold, without laments such as many others made; for there
was no one who could help him, although he was the man he was, and
had {244} in Spain two thousand ducats of income through the Church.
And that day this gentleman saw him he did not believe he had eaten
more than a mouthful, and that he had to dig up with his nails!

"I could hardly help laughing when I heard that this knight had left
the Church and the income mentioned, to go in search of such a life
as this, at the sound of the words of De Soto; because I knew Soto
very well, and although he was a man of worth, I did not suppose he
was so winning a talker, or so clever, as to delude such persons.
Forsooth, what was it that a man like him wanted, of a land
unexplored and unknown?"

What, forsooth?  Many were asking themselves this question the
morning after the fire, and could find no satisfactory answer.  The
Indians did not cease to attack them, by night and by day, so that
constant vigilance was demanded of all, and few of the wearied
soldiers secured the rest they greatly needed; though provisions were
abundant, the foraging-parties always returning with great quantities
of dried fruits and maize.

They removed to a plain a little distance {245} off, and there set up
a forge, with bellows of bear-skin, by which they retempered their
swords, injured by the fire.  They made lances and saddle-trees of
ash-wood, shields of buffalo-hide, blankets of flexible grasses, and
in a week were ready to march on again; but they remained in their
temporary huts during the month of March, and the last week of April
resumed their wanderings.  The Spaniards had hoped for a cessation of
hostilities after leaving Chicaza (the province in which they had
suffered so terribly); but three days from the frontier they came
upon a palisadoed fortress filled with Indians, "who looked like
devils rather than men."  How these "red devils" appeared to the
astonished eye-witnesses let one of them tell, for of a truth his
description cannot be improved upon, and it brings them vividly
before us.  They were naked, but seemed to be clothed, for "their
bodies, legs, and arms were painted and ochred with red, black,
white, and vermilion stripes, so that they appeared to have on
stockings and doublet.  Some wore feathers and others great horns on
their heads, their faces blackened, and eyes encircled with
vermilion, to heighten their fierce aspect.  So soon as they saw us
{246} draw nigh, they beat their drums, and, with loud yells, in
great fury came forth to greet us....  All in our sight they made a
great fire, and, taking an Indian by the head and feet, pretended to
give him many blows, and cast him into the flames; signifying in this
way what they would do with the Christians."

When it was reported to De Soto that the Indians defied him, he cast
caution to the winds, as usual, during that sullen mood which then
possessed him, and replied to Juan de Añasco, who had led the
reconnoissance: "What, devils--did you say?  Sooth, then, we cannot
pass them by.  Nothing yet, in shape of men, have we seen and have
not vanquished.  At them--at the diablos!"

But the "devils" were strongly intrenched; nor did their looks belie
their character.  Their fortress was an involved labyrinth of
palisados, considered by them impregnable, yet they sallied forth to
meet the invaders with ferocious yells and discharges of arrows.
Several soldiers were mortally wounded at the first fire; but, with
the governor in his accustomed place, at the forefront of battle,
leading the cavalry, the Spaniards charged upon and drove them within
the portals of the fort.  There they became so jammed {247} within
the narrow entrance-ways that the attacking troopers cut them down in
heaps with their good swords, and when they had finally gained the
interior, and the infantry gave their support, the carnage was
horrible.

The savages fought with desperation and to the last gasp, but many
escaped from the fort, and, swimming a deep stream on the banks of
which it was built, gathered on a plain, where, undismayed by their
fearful losses, they continued their cries of defiance.  Wrought to a
fever-heat by the action, and his anger inflamed by a blow he had
received on the head, which "made him see stars," De Soto forded the
stream and pursued the Indians for more than a league, night alone
putting a stop to the dreadful slaughter.

This stronghold of the Indians was called by them Alibamo, and was
probably situated on the Yazoo River, from which, four days after the
battle, De Soto set forth, still in a northerly direction, to avoid
the sea-coast, and in eight days reached the bank of a mightier
stream.  It was nearly half a league in width, so that "a man
standing on the farther shore could not be told whether he were a man
or not."  Its current was swift, a turbulent flood, and on its
surface were {248} great trees and masses of drift-wood, telling of
its tremendous force and the distant sources of its waters.

The Indian name of the river, at this point, was Chucagua; but, as it
was the largest the Spaniards had seen in "Florida," De Soto called
it the _Rio Grande_, or Great River.

It was, of course, none other than the Mississippi, our wonderful
"Father of Waters," "De Soto was the first European," says Mr. Irving
in his _Conquest of Florida_, "who looked upon the turbid waters of
this magnificent river, and that event has more surely enrolled his
name among those who will ever live in American history than if he
had discovered mines of gold and silver."[1]

Still, De Soto, at that time, would rather have found the mines of
which he was in search; and, like Columbus, who discovered a new
continent without being aware of the fact, was ignorant of the
magnitude of his own discovery.  It is doubtful if he could {249}
have appreciated its value had he been informed of it when,
approaching the mighty stream, through tangled swamp and flooded
lowlands, he looked anxiously across its vast expanse to the distant
shore which he was so desirous of attaining.  It was, to him, merely
an obstacle in his march, "another wide river to cross," and he cast
about at once for the means to accomplish his task.

[Illustration: DE SOTO ON THE SHORE OF THE MISSISSIPPI]

"He went to look at the river," says the Fidalgo, "and saw that near
it there was much good timber, of which pirogues might be made, and a
good situation in which a camp might be placed.  He directly moved,
built houses, and settled on a plain a cross-bow-shot from the water,
bringing together there all the maize of the towns behind him, that
at once they might go to work and cut down trees for sawing out
planks."

The nearest town to the Great River was called Quizquiz, which was
the name borne by a chieftain in the Inca's armies; but whether De
Soto was reminded by this of his adventures in Peru, and thereby
constrained to draw a contrast between his former glorious career and
his present pitiful state, does not appear.  The contrast is obvious,
for he was now not only broken in fortune, but to {250} some extent
in spirit.  Instead of seeking further conquests, he desired only
peace, and permission from the cacique of Quizquiz to build his
pirogues and cross the Great River.  This the cacique was himself
disposed to grant; but he told De Soto that he was subject to a
greater cacique, who would be angry if he did not oppose his
progress, and so felt compelled to assemble his warriors, which he
did, to the number of more than four thousand.  He lived in a hut on
the summit of a large artificial mound, and around it gathered his
warriors, the while brandishing his spear and haranguing them as
though about to lead on to an overwhelming victory.

Though with difficulty restraining his anger, De Soto held his men in
hand, ready for the emergency of battle, and at last succeeded in
pacifying the excited chieftain and securing his permission to remain
for a while, provided his men abstained from ravaging the province.
"The next day," according to the Fidalgo, "the great cacique arrived,
with two hundred canoes, filled with warriors having weapons.  The
warriors were painted with ochre, wearing great bunches of plumes in
many colors, having feathered shields in their hands, with which they
sheltered the {251} oarsmen on either side; standing erect, from bow
to stern, holding bows and arrows.

"All the canoes came down together, and arrived within a stone's-cast
of the ravine, whence the cacique said to the governor, who was
standing on the river-bank, with others who bore him company, that he
had come to visit, serve, and obey him; for he had heard that he was
the greatest of lords, the most powerful on earth, and that he must
see what he would have him to do.  The governor expressed his
pleasure, and besought him to land, that they might the better
confer; but the chief gave no reply, ordering three barges to draw
near, wherein was great quantity of fish, and loaves like bricks,
made of the pulp of persimmons, which De Soto receiving, gave him
thanks, and again entreated him to land.

"Making the gift had been a pretext to discover if any harm might be
done; but, finding the governor and his people on their guard, the
cacique began to draw away from the shore, when the cross-bow-men,
who were in readiness, with loud cries shot at the Indians, and
struck down five or six.  Still, they retired in good order, not one
leaving the oar, even though the one next to him {252} might have
fallen.  Afterwards they came many times and landed; but when
approached they would go back to their barges.  They were
fine-looking men, very large and well-formed; and, what with the
awnings, their plumes, their shields, the pennons, and the great
number of people in the fleet, it appeared like a famous armada of
galleys."

It was on a day in the second or third week of May, 1541, that De
Soto first looked on the Mississippi, which appeared to him and his
men "larger than the Danube"--as it really was--and on Saturday, June
18th, "the whole force crossed this great river in the four barges
they had built, and gave thanks to God because, in His good pleasure,
nothing more difficult could confront them."

"On the other side of the river," wrote De Soto's secretary, Ranjel,
"about seven thousand Indians had got together to defend the passage.
All of them had shields made of canes, so strong and so closely
interwoven with thread that a cross-bow could hardly pierce them.
The arrows came raining down so that the air was full of them, and
their yells were something fearful.  But when they saw that the work
on the barges did not relax on their account, they said that Pehaca,
{253} whose men they were, ordered them to withdraw, and so they left
the passage free."

These Indians, large of stature, and with their shields of
buffalo-hide, were probably the warlike Sioux, and the place of
crossing is thought to have been the lower Chickasaw Bluff, which had
been an Indian landmark from time immemorial.  The western bank of
the river was occupied by the army at sunset, and the next day, after
the boats had been broken up (for their nails and bolts, which were
preserved for another occasion), the interrupted march was resumed.
The route lay through a populous and fertile country, and the third
week in June they entered the dominions of Lord Casqui, whose village
of about four hundred houses was situated in the centre of vast
cornfields and on the banks of a pleasant stream.  This cacique
welcomed them warmly, and placed his house, which was built upon a
terraced mound, at the governor's disposal.  Bowers were constructed
for the soldiers, in which they reposed during the daytime, as well
as by night; for the heat was oppressive, and the Indians so friendly
that patrols and sentinels were hardly necessary.

This lord of Casqui, says the chronicler, {254} was the first Indian
the Spaniards had met in many months to show himself amenable to
their religion.  One day he came to De Soto, having in his company
two blind men.  "He said, that inasmuch as the governor was the son
of the sun, he begged him to restore sight to those Indians;
whereupon the blind men arose, and very earnestly entreated him to do
so.  De Soto answered them that in the heavens above there was One
who had the power to make them whole and do whatever they could ask
of Him, whose servant he was; that this great Lord made the sky and
the earth, and man after His image; that he suffered on the tree of
the true cross, to save the human race, and rose from the grave the
third day, what there was man of Him dying, what of divinity being
immortal; and that, having ascended into heaven, He was there with
open arms to receive all that would be converted to Him.

"He then ordered a lofty cross to be made and set up in the highest
part of the town, declaring to the cacique that the Christians
worshipped that, in the form and memory of the one on which Christ
suffered.  He placed himself with his people before it, on their
knees, which the Indians did likewise; and {255} he told them that
from that time henceforth they should thus worship the Lord, of whom
he had spoken to them, that was in the skies, asking Him for
whatsoever they stood in need."

One version of this incident is that the cacique asked the governor
to request his God to send him rain, and that thereupon De Soto
erected the great cross, amid the prayers and anthems of the army and
in the presence of thousands of adoring Indians.



[1] De Soto was not the discoverer of the Mississippi, nor the first
European to look upon it, for its mouth had been entered in 1520 by
Alonzo Alvarez de Poinda, commander of an expedition fitted out by
Francisco de Garay, then governor of Jamaica.  Pànfilo de Narvaez,
also, must have entered, or crossed, its mouth in or about 1528.




{256}

XIX

A YEAR OF AIMLESS WANDERING

1541-1542

The year that followed the crossing of the Mississippi was devoted to
the same insensate quest for gold that had been pursued by De Soto
during the two years preceding, and was equally barren of results.
Learning that some hills, or mountains, many leagues distant to the
south and west abounded in a certain yellow metal, the governor set
out in search of them, accompanied by Cacique Casqui, with five
thousand warriors and three thousand Indians laden with the baggage
and supplies of the army.  The Spaniards had rested nearly ten days
on the western bank of the Great River, and they marched eagerly and
with alacrity through an attractive country, until they reached the
borders of an extensive swamp.  This was crossed on rude bridges
constructed by Casqui's Indians, two days' march beyond {257} which
the army came in sight of the capital town of another cacique known
as Capaha.  This savage was at war with the allies of De Soto, who
was not aware of this fact until the town was reached, when it was
discovered that Casqui, who had forged ahead with the pick of his
warriors (under pretence of clearing the trails and foraging for
supplies), had sacked and plundered the place, besides massacring the
inhabitants.

It then developed that a perpetual enmity existed between the two
tribes, of Casqui and Capaha, and that the former had availed himself
of the protection afforded by his new allies to commit a ravage which
hitherto had been impossible, owing to his inferiority in strength
and courage to his rival, who had always vanquished him when they met
on the field of battle.  He and his warriors gratified their
long-deferred vengeance, not only by killing and scalping all they
found alive in Capaha's town, but by breaking open and desecrating
the sepulchres of his ancestors.  They wrenched from their coffins
the remains of warriors who had defeated them in the past, exposing
them to every sort of indignity, and then, removing from poles
planted around the sepulchre the heads of their own {258} braves, who
had been killed in previous wars, replaced them with similar gory
trophies severed from the trunks of those they had so recently slain.

All this had been accomplished by the time the Spaniards arrived, and
it was too late to repair the evil, though De Soto was greatly
distressed, as he had hoped to make an ally of Capaha, and not an
enemy.  He could not afford to antagonize a cacique of his
importance, in the condition in which he found himself at that time,
and so he sent an embassy to seek him out and proffer his friendship.

Capaha had retreated from the town, because, being a practised
warrior, he recognized the futility of opposing Casqui and the
Spaniards in that defenceless position, but had intrenched himself on
an island, where he awaited an attack, with a large force of
warriors.  As he spurned all proffers of peace, the governor had no
alternative but to attack him in his stronghold, and by means of
seventy canoes, which Casqui promptly provided, crossed over, with
two hundred Spaniards and three thousand Indians.  The invaders were
met with such furious assaults, however, that they could hardly
effect {259} a landing, and had scarcely done so before Casqui's
warriors, intimidated by the fury of their ancient enemies, abandoned
the Spaniards to their fate and paddled away in the canoes.

This defection might have cost De Soto his life and his army had not
the valiant Capaha ordered a cessation of hostilities, after
inflicting terrible injuries upon his foes, and himself extended the
olive-branch of peace.  He was as sagacious, it seemed, as he was
courageous, and, recognizing the wonderful prowess of his assailants,
determined to conquer a peace and convert them into allies.  This was
the more readily accomplished since the Spaniards were inclined that
way, and soon the recreant Casqui learned, to his great
mortification, that his hated rival, Capaha, was in confab with his
redoubtable ally.  Recalling his men, he sent to De Soto presents of
fish and mantles, as well as one of his own daughters as an
ambassadress.

Though the governor despised Casqui for his cowardice, yet he felt
the necessity of retaining both caciques as friends, and used his
best efforts to bring about a reconciliation.  When, however, Casqui
came into the presence of De Soto and Capaha, the {260} latter did
not deign to look in his direction, but ignored him completely.  He
refused to listen to the governor's entreaties at first, for his
heart was full of grief at the insults offered to the remains of his
ancestors and dead warriors, which he had reverently gathered
together again and, with tears and groans, deposited in their
coffins.  He finally gave his hand to Casqui, but at the same time
significantly remarked: "Through the strength of these strangers you
have revenged your past defeats, which you never could have
accomplished unassisted.  Thank them for it, then; but remember, they
will not stay here always; they will go, while we remain.  And, rest
assured, we shall meet again on the battle-field!"

Capaha was a young man, of frank and manly bearing, and De Soto was
more drawn to him than to Casqui; but the latter recovered the
governor's confidence by the following pathetic appeal: "How is it
possible, my lord," he said, "that after having given me the pledge
of friendship, and without my having done any harm to you, now you
desire to destroy me, your friend and brother?  You gave me the
cross, for a defence against my enemies; yet with it you now seek to
{261} destroy me.  Now, my lord, when God has heard us, by means of
the cross; when my women and my men and my boys threw themselves on
their knees before it, to pray to the God who you said suffered on
it, and He heard us, and gave us water in abundance and refreshed our
fields; now, when we had the most faith in it, and in your
friendship, you desire to destroy these men and women and boys, who
are so devoted to you and your God."

The governor, to his credit let us note it, was affected to tears as
he replied: "Look you, Casqui, we are not come to destroy you, but to
do for you what you know and understand is the work of the cross and
our God--as you tell me.  And these favors which it has bestowed upon
you are small things in comparison with many others, and very great
ones, which it will secure you if you love it and believe in it.  Be,
then, assured of this, and you will find it so, and realize it better
every day.  And when you ran off without my permission, I thought
that you held the teaching we had given you of little account.  But,
now that you have come in humility, be assured that I wish you more
good than you think; and if you have {262} need of anything from me
tell me of it, and you will see, since we do what our God commands
us, which is not to lie; and, therefore, believe that I tell you the
truth, since to speak a lie is a very great sin among us."

There is other evidence, also, that at this time the governor's mood
was changing, his hard heart softening towards the Indians; but that
his attitude with respect to the soldiers was unchanged is shown by
an incident which occurred in the province of Quigate a few weeks
after he had parted from Casqui and Capaha.  Information was brought
him, at or about midnight, that one Juan Gaytan, the king's
treasurer, had refused to go on patrol at the morning watch,
declaring it derogatory to his station.  Now it chanced that this
same Juan Gaytan had been among the loudest of the murmurers at
Mauvila, and led the faction that desired to seize the ships at
Pensacola for the purpose of returning to Cuba; so De Soto was
particularly incensed at his defection.  Springing from his couch in
the dwelling of the cacique, he strode forth upon the terrace above
the village and shouted, so that all his men might hear: "What is
this, my soldiers and captains?  Do the mutineers still live {263}
who, when in Mauvila, talked of returning to Cuba or to Spain; and do
they now, with the excuse of being officers of the royal revenue,
refuse to patrol the four hours that are allotted them? ... Shame,
shame on you!  And recollect that, officers of the royal treasury or
not, you must all serve your sovereign.  Presume not upon rank you
may possess; for, be he who he may, I will take off the head of that
man who refuses to do his duty.  And, to undeceive you, know that
while I live no one shall leave this country until we have conquered
and settled it!"

Needless to say, Juan Gaytan went the rounds that morning, and every
morning thereafter when it came his turn.  And the soldiers saw that
their stern commander was in no mood to tolerate murmuring, much less
any suggestion looking towards a cessation of their wanderings.  It
mattered not that the "yellow metal" of the mountains proved to be
nothing more valuable than copper, that the country became less
attractive the farther it was penetrated, and the Indians, if
possible, more hostile.  De Soto was still inexorable.  There was
never a sign of civilization, any more than there had been before, in
Florida.  The people were savages, all of them, {264} and their
dwellings were huts of the rudest character, while as for gold and
gems, they possessed neither, and seemed never to have heard of them.
Thus there was absolutely no excuse or reason for further wandering;
yet De Soto wandered on, from one province to another, here meeting
with kindness and hospitality, there with a hostile reception.
Decidedly hostile was the greeting the Spaniards received in the
province of Tula, which is a name likewise borne by an Indian
settlement in Mexico.  The natives of Tula were ugly by nature and in
feature, so hideous in appearance that they appeared deformed.  In
truth, their foreheads were artificially compressed, by bandages
applied in infancy, until their skulls were almost conical at the
crowns.  But they were as brave as they were ill-looking, and after
the Spaniards had occupied their village, which they had abandoned at
their approach, they made a midnight attack upon it, fiercely
fighting till dawn, and killing many with their pikes and
battle-axes.  They fled at sunrise to the forest, and the Spaniards
dared not pursue them; but of those made captive "the governor sent
six to the cacique, their right hands and their noses cut off, with
the {265} message that, if he did not come to him to apologize and
render obedience, he would go in pursuit, and to him and as many of
his as he might find would do as he had done to those he sent."

This barbarous act and peremptory message had the desired effect, for
at the end of three days some Indians appeared, deputed by their
chief to treat with De Soto.  As soon as they saw him they wept
copiously and cast themselves at his feet.  They brought a present of
cow-skins, dressed with their tails on, which, they said, were
obtained in the north, where roamed great herds of enormous
beasts--which were doubtless the bison, or buffalo.

About eighty leagues distant from Tula lay the province of Autiamque,
where, the Indians said, was a "great water," which from their
accounts appeared to be an arm of the sea.  "Hence the governor
determined to winter there, and in the following summer go to the
seaside, where he would build two brigantines, one to send to Cuba,
the other to Mexico, that the arrival of either might bear tidings of
him, for three years had now elapsed since he had been heard of by
Doña Isabel or by any other person in a civilized {266} community.
Two hundred and fifty of his men were dead, likewise one hundred and
fifty horses.  He desired to recruit from Cuba of man and beast,
calculating out of his property there to refit and return, to
discover farther on to the west, where he had not reached, and
whither Cabeza de Vaca had not wandered."

In Autiamque De Soto resolved to pass the winter of 1541-1542; and as
the abandoned Indian granaries were full to bursting with maize,
beans, dried grapes and plums, while the meadows afforded fine
pasturage for the horses, the Spaniards did not lack food for
themselves or for their beasts.  The few Indians who had lingered
were made captive and served to bring in wood and water, thus the
soldiers were relieved of labor, and passed the most enjoyable winter
of any they had experienced in "Florida."

While wintering in Autiamque (or Utiangue) the expedition met with
the greatest loss it was called upon to sustain, in the death of
faithful Juan Ortiz, the interpreter.  Of his last moments we know
nothing; but, says one of the soldiers, plaintively, "His death was
so great a hinderance to our going, whether on discovery or out of
the country, {267} that to learn of the Indians what he would have
rendered in four words it became necessary now to have the whole day;
and oftener than otherwise the very opposite was understood of what
we wished to know.  Thenceforth a lad of Cutifachique, who had
learned somewhat of the Christians' language, served as the
interpreter."

Poor Juan's position had been no sinecure, and his services were in
continual request, by day and by night.  "Understanding only the
Floridian language," says an historian, "he conducted conversations
through the Indians of different tribes who understood one another
and who attended the expedition.  In conversing with the Chickasaws,
for instance, he commenced with the Floridian, who carried the word
to a Georgian, this one to the Coosa, the Coosa to the Mobilian, and
the latter to the Chickasaw.  In the same tedious manner the reply
was conveyed to him, and finally reported to De Soto."

The Indian lad who succeeded to the post of interpreter was but a
sorry substitute, and when, in the month of March, 1542, the winter
cantonment was abandoned and the wearisome journeying again taken up,
the Spaniards became acutely sensible of their {268} irreparable
loss.  They were involved in all sorts of difficulties: lost in
swamps and in dense forests, and plunged into encounters with
Indians, which might have been avoided had they possessed an
intelligent interpreter.  Their only consolation lay in the fact
that, at last, their commander had become convinced of his error, in
continually wandering westward, after the _ignis fatuus_ of gold that
never materialized, and was now directing his course once more
towards the Mississippi.

Having heard of a fertile province called Anilco, which the Indians
said was near the Rio Grande, he was bent on reaching it before his
waning energies should prevent him from carrying out his plan, as
already mentioned, of building brigantines and sending to Cuba for
supplies.  He had not then, says one of the original chroniclers,
more than four hundred efficient men, nor more than forty horses.
"Some of these beasts were lame, and useful in making a show, only,
of a cavalry troop; and, from the lack of iron, they had all gone a
year without shoes."

Reflecting upon the sorry condition of his steeds, a painful contrast
must have been forced upon the dispirited commander, when he recalled
that his horses were once in a {269} similar predicament in Peru.
Climbing the craggy steeps of the sierras had worn out their shoes,
and there was no iron available in the land; but that mattered not,
for more precious metals were abundant in the Inca's country, and so
they were shod with silver!  Neither silver nor gold had been found
in paying quantities, and no natural wealth, in fact, save pearls,
the deposits of which lay so far to the eastward that they could not
be regained.

The country was populous and fertile; but the more Indians De Soto
encountered, the more foes there were; and he could not take
advantage of the soil's fertility, even were he so disposed, owing to
the lack of an advantageous situation for the founding of a colony.
Anilco, which was reached after a toilsome march through swamps and
rolling country, was a fruitful province, and, like Autiamque, was
situated on a tributary of the Mississippi, supposed to be the
Arkansas River.  About twenty miles below its junction with the Great
River, however, lay the populous town of Guachoya, between which and
Anilco the country was of inexhaustible fertility.

Towards Guachoya, consequently, De Soto {270} directed his march,
and, finding the favorable descriptions verified, established himself
there and at once began preparations for building two brigantines, in
which a portion of his command should embark for Cuba and Mexico.
The cacique of Guachoya was most hospitably inclined, receiving the
governor into his own house and providing subsistence for the army;
but, for reasons of his own, every day, at sunset, he and his
warriors embarked in their canoes and sought the eastern bank of the
Mississippi, where they remained till sunrise next morning, when they
returned, to minister to the wants of their guests.

From the behavior of the cacique, De Soto suspected that he was
forming an alliance against him of the neighboring chiefs, especially
as the cacique of Quigaltanqui, on the opposite bank of the river,
was decidedly hostile.  Neither cacique would give him any
information relating to the sea, or ocean, into which the Mississippi
emptied its vast volume of waters, so he sent the trusty Juan de
Añasco on a scouting expedition, from which he returned, eight days
later, without having discovered anything of importance.

"Then the governor sank into a deep despondency," {271} relates the
Fidalgo of Elvas, "at sight of the difficulties presenting themselves
to his reaching the sea; and, what was worse, from the way in which
the men and horses were diminishing in numbers, he felt he could not
sustain himself in the country without succor."  Of that reflection
he pined; but before he took to his pallet he sent a messenger to the
cacique of Quigaltanqui, to say that he was a child of the sun, and
whence he came all obeyed him, rendering their tribute; that he would
rejoice to see him, and in token of his love and obedience he must
bring something from his country that was most in esteem there.

By the same Indian the chief returned this answer: "As to what you
say of your being the son of the sun, if you will cause him to dry up
the Great River I will believe you; as to the rest, it is not my
custom to visit any one; but, rather, all of whom I have ever heard
have come to visit me, to serve me and to pay me tribute.  If, then,
you desire to see me, come where I am.  If for peace, I will receive
you with special good-will; if for war, I will await you within my
town; but neither for you nor for any other man will I set back one
foot!"

{272}

When the messenger returned, the governor was already very ill of
fever.  He grieved that he was not in a state to cross the river at
once and go in quest of the cacique, to see if he could not abate
that pride.  But the stream was already flowing very powerfully, was
nearly half a league broad, sixteen fathoms in depth, and rushing in
furious torrent, while on either shore were many, many Indians.




{273}

XX

LAST DAYS OF DE SOTO

1542

While many a description has been written of the scenes attendant
upon the last hours of Ferdinand de Soto, there is none on record
more affecting than that of the Fidalgo of Elvas, who was probably an
eye-witness of the most important occurrences, and participated in
them all.  For this reason, his very words are quoted in this
connection, and in order that the reader may be transported directly
to the bedside of the dying discoverer as he lay on his rude pallet
in a lowly hut belonging to the cacique of Guachoya.

"Conscious that the hour approached in which he should depart this
life," says the artless chronicler, "the governor commanded that all
his officers should be called before him, the captains and principal
personages, to whom he made speech:

{274}

"He said that he was about to go into the presence of God, to give
account of all his past life; and, since He had been pleased to take
him away at such a time--when he could recognize the moment of his
death--he, His most unworthy servant, rendered Him hearty thanks.  He
confessed his deep obligations to them all, whether present or
absent, for their good qualities, their love, and their loyalty to
his person.  He begged that they would pray for him, that, through
mercy, he might be pardoned his sins and be received into glory.  He
then asked that he might be relieved of the charge he held over them,
as well as of any indebtedness he was under to them, and to forgive
him any wrongs they might have received at his hands.

"Baltazar de Gallegos responded, in behalf of all, consoling him with
remarks on the shortness of the life of this world, attended as it
was by so many toils and afflictions, saying that whom God earliest
called away He showed particular favor to, with many other things
appropriate to such an occasion.  And finally, since it had pleased
the Almighty to take him to Himself, amid the deep sorrow they not
unreasonably felt, it was necessary and becoming in him, as in them,
to conform {275} to the divine will.  That as respected the election
of a governor, which he ordered, whomsoever his excellency should
name to the command, him would they obey.  Thereupon, the governor
nominated Luis de Moscoso de Alvarado to be his captain-general, and
by all those present he was straightway chosen and sworn.

"The next day, which was May 21, 1542, departed this life the
virtuous, the magnanimous, and the intrepid captain Don Hernando de
Soto, governor of Cuba and adelantado of the Floridas.  He had been
advanced by fortune, in the way she is wont to lead others, that he
might fall the farther; he died in a land, and at a time, that could
afford him little comfort in his illness, when the danger of being no
more heard from stared his companions in the face, each one having
need of sympathy; which was the reason why they neither gave him of
their companionship nor visited him oft, as otherwise they would have
done.

"Luis de Moscoso determined to conceal what had happened from the
Indians, for De Soto had given them to understand that the Christians
were immortal; besides which they held him to be sagacious, vigilant,
brave; {276} and, although they were at peace, should they know him
to be dead, might venture on an attack.  So soon, therefore, as death
had taken place, he ordered the body to be placed secretly in a house
apart, where it remained three days; and thence it was taken, by his
orders, to a gate of the town and buried within the wall.  The
Indians, who had seen him ill, finding him no longer, suspected the
reason, and, passing by where he lay, they observed the ground loose,
and, looking about, talked among themselves.  This coming to the
knowledge of Luis de Moscoso, he ordered the corpse to be taken up at
night, and, among the shawls that enshrouded it having cast an
abundance of sand, it was taken out in a canoe and sunk in the middle
of the stream."

[Illustration: BURIAL OF DE SOTO]

These precautions were taken to prevent the Indians from offering
insult to the revered remains, which, had they known the
burial-place, they would certainly have torn from the grave, and,
according to their barbarous custom, hung up in a lofty tree.  By
sinking the body of De Soto beneath the waters of the Mississippi,
Moscoso effectually precluded the carrying-out of their evil
intention; but the manner of his doing it was {277} not, probably, as
given by the Fidalgo.  According to the Inca Garcilaso, the body was
disinterred and placed in a hollowed-out log of live-oak, where it
was confined by a plank, nailed over the aperture.  Then it was taken
in a canoe to the centre of the river, where it was given to its last
resting-place, one hundred feet beneath the surface of the stream.

Thus, in the darkness of midnight, in a strange land and surrounded
by hostile savages, with the dramatic accessories of a torch-lighted
canoe, hooded priests, and armored cavaliers, all that was earthly of
Ferdinand de Soto was committed to the keeping of the great river he
had discovered.  Above his burial-place perpetually roll the waters
of the mighty Mississippi, and if the Indians surmised where it was,
at least they could not desecrate the remains of the cavalier who, in
the language of the Inca Garcilaso, "had crossed a portion of the
continent in search of gold, and found nothing so remarkable as his
burial-place."

They were, doubtless, aware of what had occurred, and the cacique of
Guachoya asked for De Soto, saying: "What has been done with my
brother and lord, the governor?"

{278}

"Luis de Moscoso replied that he had ascended into the skies, as he
had done on many other occasions; but as he would have to be detained
there some time, he had left him in his stead.  The chief, thinking
within himself that he was dead, ordered two well-proportioned young
men to be brought, saying that it was the usage of his country, when
any lord died, to kill some persons of inferior rank, who should
accompany and serve him on the way; and he told him to command their
heads to be struck off, that they might go accordingly to attend his
friend and master.

"Then Moscoso rejoined, that the governor was not dead, but only gone
into the heavens, having taken with him of his soldiers sufficient
number for his needs; and he besought him to let those Indians go,
and from that time forward not to follow so evil a practice.  So they
were presently ordered to be let loose, that they might return to
their homes; but one of them refused to leave, alleging that he did
not wish to remain in the power of one who, without cause, had
condemned him to die, and that he desired to serve the one who had
saved his life, so long as he should live."

{279}

The departed commander's pitiful state was shown when, Moscoso having
ordered a sale of his property by public outcry, it was found to
consist solely of two male and three female slaves, three horses with
their trappings, and seven hundred swine.  These last had wonderfully
increased, from the survivors of the many vicissitudes to which they
had been exposed, and had been jealously safeguarded by De Soto, who
knew their value as affording sustenance in the extremity of famine.
Bought by the soldiers at two hundred crowns apiece (to be paid for
when they should have the money), henceforth, says one of their
number, they lived on pork so long as it lasted, having previously
passed two or three months at a time without tasting meat of any sort.

While the life-story of Ferdinand de Soto ends with his burial
beneath the waters of the Mississippi, yet it may be naturally
assumed that the reader, having followed his fortunes so long, will
be interested in the fate of those with whom he was intimately
associated on the terrible journey.  Many had looked forward to the
death of their commander as likely to afford them opportunity to
depart {280} for Cuba, but at a council of war called by Moscoso it
was decided to press on westward in search of Mexico.  Moscoso proved
himself a very incapable commander, and during the year that followed
led his men on a wearisome and aimless journey, that finally
terminated at or near the place where De Soto died.

They had marched over many hundred miles of new territory, and left
behind them ghastly traces of their wanderings, in the corpses of
soldiers who had fallen or been slain by the way in conflicts with
the savages.  Wheresoever the Spaniards had passed, the country lay
devastated, and it was but a haggard, wretched, and famine-stricken
remnant of the original company that finally arrived at Guachoya and
viewed there, with many a sad foreboding, the place where the
governor, De Soto, had died.

One by one the cavaliers with whom we became acquainted on the march
through Florida had dropped from the ranks, among the most prominent
being Nuño de Tobar, who (as doubtless the reader will recall) had
incurred his commander's displeasure by his betrayal of the lovely
Leonora.  He had done everything in his power to placate the {281}
incensed governor, and during the long period of their journeyings
together had borne himself like a hero in every battle and skirmish;
but De Soto passed away without showing any signs of relenting
towards the unfortunate Nuño de Tobar.

The winter of 1542-1543 was passed in comparative comfort, for the
caciques of the country had become aware of the intention of the
Spaniards to depart, and, overjoyed at the prospect, hastened to
supply provisions of every sort.  But the building of the brigantines
was a long and tedious process, for there was only one ship-carpenter
in the army, and material for their construction was scarce.  Nails
and bolts were made from every scrap of iron obtainable: from the
manacles of the Indian captives, then perforce set free; from the
troopers' bits and stirrups, disused musket-barrels rendered
inefficient by the lack of ammunition, and sword-blades that had been
injured beyond repair.  The Indians gave their services for the
cutting of timber and bearing it from the forests to the river-bank;
but it was not until July 2, 1543, that the wretched remains of De
Soto's once-noble army, then reduced to less than three hundred and
fifty men, embarked upon the {282} bosom of the great river which, as
the Spaniards supposed, would take them to the sea, upon whose shores
they might find a haven of safety.

The cumbersome craft were difficult to manage, for the currents of
the Mississippi were swift and dangerous; but they encountered yet
another peril, in vast fleets of canoes manned with Indian warriors
by the hostile cacique Quigaltanqui--the same who had sent the
defiant message to De Soto when on his bed of death.  Instead of
endeavoring to placate this chieftain, Moscoso had further
exasperated him by cutting off the hands of thirty spies, whom he had
captured in his camp, and sent home thus horribly mutilated.  Wrought
to the highest pitch of fury, the cacique vowed revenge, and soon
after the Spanish fleet put down the river it was assailed by
thousands of savages, whose naked skins were hideously painted, and
who proved fatally expert with bow and arrow, as well as with spear
and war-club.  It was not long before all but eight of the horses
were killed and nearly every Spaniard wounded, while on the fourth
day of the voyage four boats were cut off from the little fleet and
forty-eight soldiers met death by {283} drowning or by Indian arrows.
A few days later the hapless Spaniards were compelled to witness the
extermination of their beloved horses, which they had landed for the
purpose of foraging on shore.  Left to their cruel fate--for their
owners barely escaped with their lives--the poor beasts were felled
by savages with war-clubs and transfixed with arrows, while the
troopers looked on and wept, in futile rage and grief.  As all their
powder had been consumed in the fire at Mauvila, the few arquebuses
remaining were useless, and the harried Spaniards could only defend
themselves with their cross-bows, for once in their experience
enduring greater losses than they inflicted upon the enemy.  This
unequal combat went on during sixteen days, until at last, their
vengeance sated, the savages gave over the pursuit and departed up
the river, amid howls and songs of victory.

Shortly after, the unfortunate voyagers sighted the sea; but their
troubles were then by no means ended, for they were without chart,
compass, pilot, or skilled navigator, and knew not whether to push
out boldly into the Gulf of Mexico or follow the windings of the
coast.  The former course was adopted, but a gale of twenty-six
hours' {284} duration separated and nearly wrecked the frail
brigantines, which after that were kept in near to shore.  They
voyaged so slowly that nearly two months were consumed in reaching a
Mexican port now known as Tampico, the inhabitants of which received
the starving survivors with generous hospitality.  Clad in the skins
of wild beasts, with hair and beards untrimmed, the once-vaunted
soldiers of Florida were objects of wonder and commiseration.  After
having been supplied with food and clothing by the Mexicans, they
were sent overland to the city of Mexico, where the viceroy and the
commonalty vied in showing them kindness and attention.

Few of these Floridian soldiers ever returned to Spain or to Cuba,
but ended their days in Mexico or Peru, where they enlisted for
military service.  The viceroy of Mexico offered to equip another
expedition and send them back to colonize the country which at a
distance and in retrospection, appeared to them fruitful and
promising; but when put to the test they shrank from the fatigues and
dangers to which they might be exposed.

They had reached Mexico about the middle of September, 1543.  A month
later one of several expeditions, sent out by Doña {285} Isabel from
Havana, arrived at Vera Cruz and learned for the first time of the
disasters that had overtaken De Soto.  It was commanded by those
loyal cavaliers Diego Maldonado and Gomez Arias, who (as the reader
will remember) had been despatched by De Soto to Cuba for
reinforcements and supplies.  They faithfully fulfilled their
respective missions, and returned to Pensacola, where they waited
long and anxiously in the harbor, daily expecting their commander to
appear.  When finally convinced that further waiting was in vain,
they searched the harbors east and west for many leagues, then
returned to Cuba, whence, the next summer, they were again sent to
Florida by the anxious and loyal wife of De Soto.

A second time they returned, after an equally fruitless quest, and
the next season sailed again, cruising around the Gulf of Mexico as
far as Vera Cruz, where at last they learned of what had happened.
The sorrowful tidings which they carried back to Doña Isabel, still
waiting and hoping in Havana, overwhelmed her so completely that she
soon after sank broken-hearted to her grave.




{287}

INDEX

ACHALAQUE, province of, 192.

Achese, province, 159.

Acoste, cacique of, 202, 204, 207.

Acuera, Indian cacique, 112, 113.

Adelantado, title given De Soto, 78.

Alibamo, Indian stronghold, 247.

Añasco, Juan de, soldier, 84, 142, 143, 145, 146, 149, 181, 184, 246,
270.

Anhayca, Apalachee capital, 142 (_see map_).

Anilco, province of, 268, 269.

Apalachee tribe of Indians, 133 _et seq._; chap, x.

Arias, Gomez, Spanish soldier, 145, 147; seeks De Soto, 285.

Arkansas River crossed by De Soto, 269.

Atahuallpa, Inca of Peru, 1, 2, 60-62.

Atapaha, Floridian province, 159.

Auté, bay of, 144, 151.

Autiamque province, 265, 266.

Avila, Don Pedro Arias de (Pedrarias), 14-18, 21, 23, 24, 31, 42;
murders De Cordova, 44; denounced by De Soto, 47; atrocities and
death of, 59.

Ayllon, Vasquez de, lawyer-explorer, 182.



BADAJOZ, castle of, Spain, 72.

Balboa, Vasco Nuñez de, 17, 19.

Barbacoa, Indian corn-crib, 171.

Bison, or buffalo, seen, 172.

Blood-hound, a sagacious, 116.

Bobadilla, Isabel de.  _See_ Isabel, and Doña.



CACICA, female cacique, 163, 176, 180; generosity of, 189; made
captive, 190; escape of the,

Calderon, Captain Pedro, 103, 149.

Capachiqui, in Florida, 159.

Capafi, cacique, 140, 152-154

Capaha, Indian cacique, 257-260, 262.

Casqui, Lord, 253, 256 _et seq._

Cherokees, country of the, 192.

Chickasaws, country of the, 238.

Child of the sun, 4, 271.

Choctaws, land of the, 208.

Chucagua, Indian name of Mississippi River, 248.

Codro, astrologer, 50-56.

Cofachiqui, cacica's province, 163.

Cofaqui, cacique of, 163.

Coosa River, the, 202, 205.

Cordova, Fernando de, 42-44

Cross raised by De Soto, 254.



DE CORDOVA, FERDINAND.  _See_ Cordova.

De Soto, Ferdinand.  _See_ Soto.

Diaz, Bernal, 44.

Dogs, native, as food supply, 161.

Don Pedro.  _See_ Avila.

Doña Isabel.  _See_ Isabel de Bobadilla.



ESPINOSA, CAPTAIN, 32, 35, 36.

Espíritu Santo, bay of, 90; original Spanish name of Mississippi
River.



FALCONET, the, abandoned, 162.

"Fidalgo" of Elvas, Portuguese narrator, 157, 177, 207, 249, 271, 273.

Florida, first landing in, 74; De Soto governor of, 77; lands in, 90;
Indians of, 92.



GALLEGOS, BALTASAR DE, soldier, 89, 99, 220; consoles De Soto, 274.

Gaytan, Juan, defection of, 262.

Gold, gossip about, 157, 158.

Gomera, the governor of, 80; daughter of, 80, 81.

Gonzales, Gil, 42-44.

Granada, in Nicaragua, 43.

Guachoya, town and chief of, 269, 270, 280.



HAMMOCK bridges, 109.

Havana, departure from, 89.

_Hidalguia_ of Spain, 14.

Hillsboro River, 109.



ICHIAHA, cacique of, 196.

Inca Garcilaso, the, 277.

Indian princess, 176 _et seq._

Indians, of Nicaragua, 31; of Florida, 92, 93, 95, 96; fierce
warriors of the, 112; different tribes, 113; battles with, 125-128,
135-140; of Apalachee, 133, 142; sufferings of, 159; sepulchres of,
188; treachery of, 220, 239; painted like devils, 245; intrepidity
of, 247; on the Mississippi, 250, 253; languages of the, 267; revenge
themselves upon the Spaniards, 282.

Irving, Theodore, _The Conquest of Florida_, 237, 248.

Isabel de Bobadilla, 16, 17, 19, 22; married to De Soto, 71; Doña,
remains in Cuba, 89; receives tidings from De Soto, 147; dies
broken-hearted, 285.



JERÉS DE LOS CABALLEROS, 13, 14.



"KNIGHT OF LA MANCHA," the, 105.



LEON, town in Nicaragua, 43; Ponce de, 74, 77.

Leonora, daughter of Spanish governor, 81.



MALDONADO, DIEGO, 150, 214, 230; searches for De Soto, 285.

Mauvila (or Mobile), Indian stronghold, 211-213; battle of, chapter
xvi.

Mexico, arrival of De Soto's men in, 284.

Mississippi River, first glimpse of, by De Soto, 248, 252.

Mocoso, Indian chief, in Florida, 97, 98, 107, 146.

Moscoso, Luis de, Spanish captain, 110, 219, 239, 275, 276, 278, 280,
282.

Moya, Marchioness of, 15.



NARVAEZ, PÁNFILO DE, 74, 75; relics of, 144.



OCALI, Indian town of, 114; cacique of, 117.

Ochile, Indian town, 118.

Ochuse, bay of Pensacola, 150.

Ortiz, Juan, interpreter, 98, 99, 101; death of, 266.

Osachile, village of, 131, 132.

Osorio, Don Antonio, 243.

Oviedo, historian, 235, 243.



PANAMA founded by Pedrarias, 27.

Paracoxi, Indian chief, 107, 108.

Patofa, cacique, 164, 165, 169, 173, 174.

Pearls, vast quantities of, 180; fishing for, 199.

Pedrarias.  _See_ Avila.

Pensacola Bay discovered, 150; distance from Mauvila, 230.

Perico, Indian interpreter, 166, 167.

Pizarro, Francisco and brothers, 6; Hernando, 7, 9.

Ponce, Hernan, 85, 88.

Porcallo, Vasco, 82, 83, 92, 105, 107.



QUIGALTANQUI, cacique of, 270, 271, 282.

Quizquiz, Indian town, 249; cacique of, 250.



RANJEL, RODRIGO, De Soto's secretary, 98, 181, 220, 243.

Rio Grande, Great River--Mississippi, 248.

Rios, Don Pedro de los, 42.



ST. MARKS BAY discovered, 144.

"Secret of the strait," the, 48, 49.

Sioux Indians, mention of, 253.

Soto, Ferdinand de, advent of, 1-4; early life of, 13-20; sails for
America, 21; fights a duel, 27; in Nicaragua, 30-44; defies
Pedrarias, 47; explores Nicaragua, 49; avenges death of friend, 57;
friend of the Inca, 61, 63; campaign in Peru, 60 _et seq._; denounces
Pizarro, 63; attacks Peruvians, 65; enters Cuzco, 67; returns to
Spain, 69; enriched by plunder, 70; marries Isabel de Bobadilla, 71;
adelantado of Florida, 77; sails for Cuba, 79; arrives at Santiago,
81; at Havana, 84; lands in Florida, 90; on the march, 107 _et seq._;
is wounded by Indian, 127; burns captive at stake, 168; takes a
princess captive, 190; in a terrible battle, 221, 226; severely
wounded, 222; loses his nephews in fight, 222; strange determination
of, 234; in burning village, 240; in great "extremity, 242; again
wounded, 247; arrives at Mississippi River, 247; not its discoverer,
248; mutilates Indians, 264; last days of, 273; bids farewell to
companions, 274; death of, 275; burial of beneath the Mississippi,
276.

Suwanee River, 130; Old Town, 132.

Swamp, battle of the, 135-138.



TALIMICO, tombs of, 182, 188.

Talise, Tuscaloosa's town, 210.

Tallahassee, site of, 144.

Tampa Bay--Espíritu Santo, 95.

Tampico, Spaniards arrive at, 284.

Terron, Juan, and his pearls, 194.

Toalli, aboriginal town, 159.

Tobar, Nuño de, cavalier, 80, 81; death of, 280.

Tula, Indian town of, 264.

Tuscaloosa, mighty warrior, 208, 212; encounter with, 215, 228.



UCITA, Chief, maltreated by Narvaez, 94, 96.

Uracca, Nicaraguan Indian, 31, 40.

Utiangue, or Autiamque, 266.



VACA, CABEZA DE, 75, 76, 78.

Valenzuela, Geronimo, 54,

Veragua, province of, 31.

Vitachuco, cacique and province of, 118, 128.



WARRIOR, the Black, or Tuscaloosa, 208.



XERÉS DE LOS CABALLEROS, 14.



YAZOO RIVER, 247.

Yemassees of Florida, 113.



ZEBACOS islands, 55.



THE END




[Transcriber's note: the paragraph at the end of Chapter VII,
describing De Soto's army, may have been intended as a footnote, but
it had no number and there was no footnote number anywhere in the
chapter.  It has been formatted as a footnote.]







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