loaded them to such a degree that when they were all on board and were ready to set sail, the gunwales were but seven or eight inches out of the water.

END OF THE EXPEDITION.

In this condition, when all were ready, the boats put off from the shore. Of course, it would have been certain destruction to expose such embarkations as these to the open sea, and so the little fleet was kept in smooth water inside the reefs and sandbars and low islands which here line the coast. They steered for the westward, supposing that the vessels had gone on in that direction. The line of boats crept thus slowly along the shore, with a terrible danger threatening them on either hand. Seaward, just outside the range of reefs and sandbars, they could see the white crests of the seas rolling in and threatening to overwhelm them, while along the margin of the land every thicket concealed a party of exasperated and merciless enemies thirsting for their blood. Between these two lines of danger there was but a narrow way along which they could pass, so as to be safe from the surf on one side and beyond the range of the arrows on the other.

They went on in this way, growing weaker and

weaker, and suffering more and more every day, for a month. One thing favored them, it is true. They succeeded in capturing one or two Indian canoes, by which means they were enabled to divide and so lighten their loads. They often landed, in their desperation, to seek for food, sometimes attacking an Indian village to procure it. On one such occasion they were beaten off by the Indians, and Narvaez was struck in the face by a stone and very seriously wounded.

At last one night, as they were toiling despairingly on, in the vicinity, it is supposed, of where the town of Pensacola now stands, being reduced almost to the last extreme of destitution and suffering, a storm came up, with the wind blowing off the land. The men were lying almost lifeless in the boats, many of them too weak to lift an oar. Narvaez saw now that the end had come. He told his officers and men that the time had arrived for each one to take care of himself. He released them from their duty to him, wished them success in the endeavors which any of them might make to save their lives, and bade them farewell.

The boats were scattered by the storm, and all but one was driven to sea and lost. One succeeded in reaching the shore, or was driven upon it at some projecting point. The men on board of

this boat were almost lifeless. The Indians, finding them in this piteous condition, had compassion upon them, took them to their wigwams, and restored them to life.

One of the men thus saved was Alva de Vaca, the secretary and paymaster of the expedition, before referred to. He was carried back into the ininterior, and remained a captive in the Indian country for eight years. In the course of that time he was transferred from tribe to tribe, and conveyed from one territory to another, first across the Mississippi and then on further to the west, until he had traversed the whole continent, and reached California, where at length he found a Spanish ship, in which he embarked, and in due time arrived in Spain. He was received on his return as one that had risen from the dead.

This De Vaca wrote and published an account of the expedition of Narvaez, and of his own adventures after his escape, and it is from this narrative that the facts related in this chapter have been derived.

CHAPTER VII.

FERNANDO DE SO TO.

COMMENCEMENT OF DE SOTO'S CAREER.

FERNANDO DE SOTO is immortalized in history as the discoverer of the Mississippi River. It is true that De Vaca, the officer who was saved from the expedition of Narvaez, and afterward traversed the country to California, must have crossed the Mississippi, and some persons have thought that Narvaez himself, in his boats, reached the mouth of that river before the boats were lost. But this is not certain. At any rate De Soto was the first to explore any considerable portion of the stream, and to make its existence effectually known to mankind.

De Soto was a Spanish general, and he first attracted attention in his day by various exploits which he performed in Nicaragua and Peru, in connection with the famous Pizarro. Indeed, he was for a time Pizarro's second in command, but · being dissatisfied with the portion of the spoil which fell to his share in Peru, although, in fact,

the share which he received was so great that he was enormously enriched by it, he determined to undertake an enterprise on his own account. After long revolving the subject in his mind, the plan on which he finally settled was to repeat the attempt in which Narvaez had so signally failed, as related in the last chapter, namely, that of making the conquest of Florida and establishing a kingdom there.

The term Florida, in those days, was not restricted in its application to the present limits of the state of Florida, but was applied indefinitely to the whole region in that quarter of the continent which had been or was to be discovered.

Since the attempt of Narvaez ten years had now elapsed, and no one had thus far seemed disposed to repeat the undertaking which had terminated so disastrously for him. Narvaez had penetrated but very little way into the interior, and, therefore, very little was yet known of the country except the mere aspect of the shore. De Soto imagined that at some distance within there might exist cities and towns, and cultivated fields, and a semicivilized people possessed of vast treasures of gold and silver, such as had been found so abundant in Mexico and Peru. This was indeed the prevailing idea among these adventurers in respect to all the