They advanced onward through a wilderness day after day, and week after week, amid continual skirmishes with the natives, and ever, as they went, mass was performed by priests with all the pomp of Catholic ceremonial; and cruelties were practised on their captives, whilst they amused themselves by gaming. Thus they wandered onward through uncultivated regions for upwards of five months, and then established themselves in winter-quarters. In twelve months they had advanced to the ocean—to the very spot whence Narvaez had embarked; they had found plenty of maize, but no gold, and no cities but only small Indian villages. Next spring they broke up their winter camp, and set out for a remote country, of which they had heard, lying to the north-east, abounding in gold and silver, and the ruler of which was a woman.
They now advanced to the north-east, made a long and arduous journey, and arrived indeed at the territory of the queen, of whose wealth they had conceived such extravagant hopes; but the gold proved to be copper, and the silver thin plates of mica. Still de Soto advancing with a perseverance worthy of a better cause, came to the spring-heads of vast rivers, and thus reached the Highlands of Georgia, where he fell in with the peaceable and gentle Cherokee Indians. This was the second year of his wanderings. Some of de Soto’s companions wished to settle down here in the midst of a beautiful region, and enjoy the riches of an abundant soil. But no,—de Soto would not listen to such a scheme: he had promised a second Peru and Mexico to Spain, and he would not desist from his wanderings till they were found. He was a resolute man, of few words, and his followers yielded themselves to his commands.
Again he heard of gold still further north, and despatched two horsemen, with Indian guides, to visit the country; and once more they returned with copper; gold there was none. They wandered still further, advancing into Alabama, where was a large Indian town, Mavilla, afterwards Mobile. The Indians rose in arms; a battle ensued; the Spanish cavalry were victors: it was the bloodiest battle ever known in Indian warfare. The Indians fought for nine hours, and several thousands were slaughtered; the town was burned to ashes, and numbers of Indians perished in the flames. The Spaniards also lost many of their number, together with horses and the whole of their baggage. Their situation was terrible in the extreme; food they had none, nor medicines for the wounded—all were lost. Fortunately for them, however, the spirit of the Indians was so completely broken, that they could no longer molest them. Spanish ships, from Cuba, now awaited them with supplies in Pensacola Bay, near Mavilla. But, fearing that his disheartened soldiers might leave him, and as he had no tidings of gold and great glory to send home, and was too proud to send any other, he turned away from the sea-coast, and again advanced inland.
Winter overtook them in the northern parts of Mississippi, with severe frost and snow, and they established themselves in an Indian village, which the inhabitants had deserted at their approach, and in the fields of which the maize still remained uncut. The Indians returned in the depth of winter and in the dead of night, and set fire to the village. All that had been saved from the fires of Mavilla was now destroyed; they lost all their beloved swine, many of their horses, and all their clothes. Their sufferings were intense. De Soto ordered the chains to be taken from the captives, and new weapons to be forged. Clothed in skins and mats of ivy-leaves, he still advanced further west in search of the land of gold. For seven days they wandered on through wildernesses of forest and morass, and reached the Indian settlements in the vicinity of the Mississippi. De Soto was the first European who beheld that mighty river. He saw it then as the familiar trader on its banks beholds it now, rolling its immense mass of waters through a rich alluvial soil, more than a mile broad, and carrying trees and timber down its turbid flood.
In May, 1541, the Spaniards, having constructed boats, crossed the river, and proceeded westward into Arkansas. The natives, regarding them with reverence, and believing them to be the children of the sun, brought their blind to them, that they might receive sight. “Pray only to God who dwells in heaven,” replied de Soto, “and He will give you what you need.”
De Soto proceeded onward in the direction of the north-west, and reached the mountains of the White River, two hundred miles from the Mississippi; but there were neither gold nor precious stones in these mountains. They took up their third winter-quarters among peaceful Indians, who pursued agriculture rather than war; and the young cavaliers found their pastime in practising cruelties on the natives. In the spring, de Soto descended the White River, and became entangled in the midst of dismal swamps; Indian settlements there were none; the whole country was apparently interminable morass, forest, and cane brake. De Soto received in gloomy silence this report from scouts whom he had sent forward. Horses and men lay dying around him; and, to add still more to his distress, hostile Indians were coming up on all sides. His ambitious pride was now changed into deep melancholy, and his health gave way under the pressure of disappointed hope. Of his gallant company, three hundred alone remained.
Feeling the approach of death, he summoned his people round him, and named his successor. The following day he died. “His soldiers,” says Bancroft, “pronounced his eulogy by sorrowing for his loss. The priests chanted over his body the first requiem that was ever heard by the waters of the Mississippi.” His body was wrapped in a mantle, and, in the dead of night, his soldiers bore him to the middle of the Mississippi, and silently sunk his body in the river.
Singular to say, this was once more the month of May, four years from the time of his setting forth; “the spring burst forth gloriously over the Mississippi,” says a writer on this subject, “but de Soto rose up no more to meet it.” “The discoverer of the Mississippi,” concludes Bancroft, “slept beneath its waters. For four years he had wandered to and fro over a great portion of the continent in search of gold, but he found nothing so remarkable as his place of burial.”
The successor whom de Soto had appointed now attempted to lead back the remnant of the party by the way of Mexico; but, after several months’ wanderings and adventures among the hostile tribes of the western prairies, they retraced their steps to the Mississippi, on the banks of which they passed the winter. Here they constructed boats, which were ready for their embarkation in the month of July, and on the 20th of September, 1543, they arrived, half naked and famished with hunger, at a Spanish settlement near the mouth of the river Panuco, in Mexico.
Such was the discovery of the Mississippi.