The soldiers felt that they had had enough adventure of this kind, and clamored to be led back to their ships. De Soto had been advised that the ships were then in the Bay of Pensacola, only six days' journey from Mavilla, but he kept this a secret from his men, for hopes of fame and wealth still filled his soul. In the end, despite their entreaties, he led the men to the north, spending the winter in a small village of the Chickasaw Indians.
When spring opened the adventurers resumed their journey into the unknown. In his usual forcible fashion De Soto seized on Indians to carry his baggage, and in this way he brought on a violent battle, in which the whites met with a serious defeat and were in imminent danger of annihilation. Not a man of them would have lived to tell the tale if the savages had not been so scared at their own success that they drew back just when they had the hated Spaniards in their power.
De Soto Discovering the Mississippi River.
A strange-looking army was that which the indomitable De Soto led forward from this place. Many of the uniforms of the men had been carried off by the enemy, and these were replaced with skins and mats made of ivy-leaves, so that the adventurers looked more like forest braves than Christian warriors. But onward still they trudged, sick at heart many of them, but obeying the orders of their resolute chief, and in the blossoming month of May they made that famous discovery by which the name of Hernando de Soto has ever since been known. For they stood on the banks of one of the mightiest rivers of the earth, the great Father of Waters, the grand Mississippi. From thousands of miles to the north had come the waters which now rolled onward in a mighty volume before their eyes, hastening downward to bury themselves in the still distant Gulf.
A discovery such as this might have been enough to satisfy the cravings of any ordinary man, but De Soto, in his insatiable greed for gold, saw in the glorious stream only an obstacle to his course, "half a league over." To build boats and cross the stream was the one purpose that filled his mind, and with much labor they succeeded in getting across the great stream themselves and the few of their horses that remained.
At once the old story began again. The Indians beyond the Mississippi had heard of the Spaniards and their methods, and met them with relentless hostility. They had hardly landed on the opposite shore before new battles began. As for the Indian empire, with great cities, civilized inhabitants, and heaps of gold, which Be Soto so ardently sought, it seemed as far off as ever, and he was a sadly disappointed man as he led the miserable remnant of his once well-equipped and hopeful followers up the left bank of the great stream, dreams of wealth and renown not yet quite driven from his mind.
At length they reached the region of the present State of Missouri. Here the simple-minded people took the white strangers to be children of the Sun, the god of their worship, and they brought out their blind, hoping to have them restored to sight by a touch from the healing hands of these divine visitors. Leaving after a time these superstitious tribes, De Soto led his men to the west, lured on still by the phantom of a wealthy Indian realm, and the next winter was passed near where Little Rock, Arkansas, is now built.
Spring returned at length, and the weary wanderings of the devoted band were resumed. Depressed, worn-out, hopeless, they trudged onward, hardly a man among them looking for aught but death in those forest wilds. Juan Ortiz, the most useful man in the band, died, and left the enterprise still more hopeless. But De Soto, worn, sick, emaciated, was indomitable still and the dream of a brilliant success lingered as ever in his brain. He tried now to win over the Indians by pretending to be immortal and to be gifted with supernatural powers, but it was too late to make them credit any such fantastic notion.
The band encamped in an unhealthy spot near the great river. Here disease attacked the men; scouts were sent out to seek a better place, but they found only trackless woods and rumors of Indian bands creeping stealthily up on all sides to destroy what remained of the little army of whites.