held him to insure the tribe's peaceful conduct; and forced him to supply food and men and women for the use of the army.

De Soto's first pitched battle with the Indians resulted from an attempt made by the natives of Caliquen to rescue their chief. Ortiz, who knew their language, informed him of the plot. Four hundred natives stationed themselves outside the camp and sent two of their number to demand their chief's release. De Soto took the chief by the hand and led him out, accompanied by a dozen foot soldiers; and then, having thrown the Indians off guard by this strategy, he ordered the trumpet sounded. Shouting their battle cry of "Santiago" the Spaniards bore down upon the Indians, and, after a brief fierce fight, routed them and killed from thirty to forty, while the rest leaped into two nearby lakes to escape the horsemen's lances. The Spaniards surrounded one of the lakes; and during the night some, more alert-eyed than others, observed the odd phenomenon of water-lilies slowly moving inshore over the moonlit surface of the water. The Indians had put the lilies on their heads and were swimming noiselessly and with barely a ripple towards land. The Spaniards rushed in, to their horses' breasts, and drove them

back. The next day all but a few were captured and divided among the Spaniards as slaves. The forges were in full blast that day for the riveting of chains and iron collars.

But, though chained, the natives of Caliquen were not tamed. They rose against their captors, seized their weapons, and, whether lances or swords, handled them as if accustomed to use them all their lives; so says the Gentleman of Elvas, who took part in the mêlée. "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."

A further march of about thirty miles brought the Spaniards to a town of the Appalachees near Tallahassee, probably the same visited by Narváez. There they found the Qctober fields of grain, beans, and pumpkins ready to harvest, and decided to go into camp for the winter. From this point De Soto dispatched communications to his ships at Tampa and sent letters, with a present of twenty Indian women captives, to be carried to Doña Isabel in Cuba. The army remained in camp till March.

Besides the men sent to the ships at Tampa Bay - who were to bring back the garrison left there -De Soto sent out two exploring parties. One

of these parties discovered Pensacola Bay. The other came suddenly upon a beautiful bay at no great distance from the camp. Its blue waves, with the amethystine streak characteristic of Southern waters, were vivid under the sun, which smote to glistening scattered white objects like little heaps of pearl along its shore. This bay was the Bay of Horses, whence Narváez and his men had set out in their horsehide boats. The glistening white heaps were the bleached bones and skulls of their slain mounts.

Besought by his men "to leave the land of Florida," lest they all perish like Narváez, De Soto sternly replied that he would never turn back. In his heart he had already resolved to go on until he should find the golden country he sought; or, failing in that search, to perish rather than return to bear the chagrin of seeing himself outdone by some other conquistador who, by greater perseverance, might discover "another Mexico" in the great interior.

So, on March 3, 1540, De Soto broke camp and took his way northeastward, across the present State of Georgia, through the country of the Creeks. Towards the end of April he reached a town called Cufitachiqui. It was on the Savannah River,

probably somewhere below Augusta; Indian tradition locates it at the modern Silver Bluff. The cacica, or chieftainess, richly draped in furs and feathers, with loops of pearls depending from her neck, crossed the river in a canoe to greet Don Hernando, accompanied by her men of state and followed by a fleet of canoes laden with gifts for the visiting prince. After speeches of welcome, she took off a large string of pearls and threw it about De Soto's neck. Then she offered more canoes brought to convey him and his men to the other side. Seeing that the pearls rejoiced him, she told him that if he would open the burial mounds he would find many more and that, in some deserted towns nearby, "he might load all his horses with them." So from the graves at Cufitachiqui De Soto took three hundred and fifty pounds of pearls "and figures of babies and birds made of them." He found also a dirk and some rosaries that had once belonged to Ayllón's followers.

At Cufitachiqui De Soto's men desired to make a settlement. It was a favorable point to begin colonization. It lay but two days' journey from the sea "to which could come all the ships from New Spain"; and it was "a good country, and one fit in which to raise supplies." But De Soto was

looking for another treasure such as he had wrested from the Inca in Peru and he "would not be content with good lands nor pearls," saying that 'should a richer country not be found, they could always return to that who would." He then asked the cacica if there were "any great lord farther on" and was blandly told of the rich province of Chiaha, subject to a chief of Coosa. To seek this new goal he resolved to go at once, and "being an inflexible man, and dry of word, 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 .there were none who would say a thing to him after it became known that he had made up his mind." It was discovered presently that this red-skinned Cleopatra now wished to slip away from her Antony, and without giving him carriers for his supplies, "because of the outrages committed upon the inhabitants." De Soto put her under guard and carried her away on foot with her female slaves. This treatment, as the Gentleman of Elvas remarks, "was not a ⚫ proper return" for the hospitality and affectionate welcome he had received.

So

Seven days' marching brought the Spaniards