The tone of the picture is heightened through the mingling of the pale moonlight with the lurid reflection from the torches, and the coloring altogether is such that it is in perfect harmony with the occasion.
It is unnecessary to dwell upon the subsequent fate of the remnant of the expedition, except, perhaps, to say that the picture itself gains in interest by contemplating that, after wandering through the pathless forests, wading swamps, swimming rivers and fighting Indians all the time, and deprived of their leader, and after four years of hardships from the time that the expedition set out, those who were left made their way to Mexico. In the meantime the beautiful wife of De Soto had died brokenhearted, and never was there, all in all, a more tragic ending to an expedition commenced amid so much pomp and glory and with such sanguine expectations. His longed-for Eldorado was not found, and yet De Soto, not unlike Columbus, gained immortality more surely than if his expectations had been realized; for the Father of Waters, the greatest river in the world, will always be associated with his name, and the acquisition of the vast province of Louisiana by Spain led the way for its subsequent transfer to the United States. It was on April 30, 1803, that through the negotiations conducted by James Monroe and Robert Livingston the Province of Louisiana was purchased for the sum of about $15,000,000 from France, which nation had prior thereto acquired it from Spain.
In view of the chapters of history which a contemplation of this picture recalls, it is of particular interest during this year (1904), when through the magnificent Louisiana Purchase Exposition we are celebrating the centennial anniversary of the acquisition by the United States of the vast territory, which before De Soto and his followers the foot of white man had never trod.
[HENRY HUDSON ENTERING NEW YORK BAY]
(September 11, 1609)
Copyright, 1898, by Edward Moran.