One warm, sultry morning, when the mocking bird was trilling a beautiful melody from an overhanging sycamore, which jutted over the bank of the slow-moving, yet turbulent Mississippi, the spirit of the bold adventurer departed. His hardened and sunburned companions were dewy-eyed when they gazed upon the still countenance of their friend and kindly adviser. They wrapped him in a sheet, rowed him to the center of the swirling stream, dropped him overboard, and left him amidst the silence of the great, wild country where the “golden man” had never been found.
So perished De Soto, a cavalier of Spain in a day when Spain had great warriors and noble-minded, yet adventuresome men. As a horseman he had few superiors; as a soldier he could bear as many privations as any man. Towards his own cavaliers he was merciful and just; towards the hostile natives of silent Florida he was merciless and cruel. He was a man of learning, of imagination, of iron will, as is exhibited by the fact that he held his gold-worshiping supporters to their journey long after many had sickened of the affair and had wished to go home. At one time worth a million dollars, the companion of Kings and of Princes, he died in the wilderness of the New World. His followers drifted back to Mexico, broken in both health and in spirit, so his ambitious dream for a colony in the land of the fanciful El Dorado was never consummated.
SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN:
EXPLORER OF THE CANADIAN WILDERNESS.
(1567-1635)
Where the hemlock bends her tufted head;
Where the beaver breeds in the pool;
Where the moose-bird chatters his mimic song;