Pioneers of France in the New World | Page 8

Ponce, and the general outline of the coasts of Florida
became known to the Spaniards.[FN#4] Meanwhile, Cortes had
conquered Mexico, and the fame of that iniquitous but magnificent
exploit rang through all Spain. Many an impatient cavalier burned to
achieve a kindred fortune. To the excited fancy of the Spaniards the
unknown land of Florida seemed the seat of surpassing wealth, and
Pamphilo de Narvaez essayed to possess himself of its fancied treasures.
Landing on its shores, and proclaiming destruction to the Indians unless
they acknowledged the sovereignty of the Pope and the Emperor, he
advanced into the forests with three hundred men. Nothing could
exceed their sufferings. Nowhere could they find the gold they came to
seek. The village of Appalache, where they hoped to gain a rich booty,
offered nothing but a few mean wigwams. The horses gave out, and the
famished soldiers fed upon their flesh. The men sickened, and the
Indians unceasingly harassed their march. At length, after two hundred
and eighty leagues [FN#5] of wandering, they found themselves on the
northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico, and desperately put to sea in such

crazy boats as their skill and means could construct. Cold, disease,
famine, thirst, and the fury of the waves, melted them away. Narvaez
himself perished, and of his wretched followers no more than four
escaped, reaching by land, after years of vicissitude, the Christian
settlements of New Spain. [FN#6]
The interior of the vast country then comprehended under the name of
Florida still remained unexplored. The Spanish voyager, as his caravel
ploughed the adjacent seas, might give full scope to his imagination,
and dream that beyond the long, low margin of forest which bounded
his horizon lay hid a rich harvest for some future conqueror; perhaps a
second Mexico with its royal palace and sacred pyramids, or another
Cuzco with its temple of the Sun, encircled with a frieze of gold.
Haunted by such visions, the ocean chivalry of Spain could not long
stand idle.
Hernando de Soto was the companion of Pizarro in the conquest of
Peru. He had come to America a needy adventurer, with no other
fortune than his sword and target. But his exploits had given him fame
and fortune, and he appeared at court with the retinue of a
nobleman.[FN#7] Still, his active energies could not endure repose, and
his avarice and ambition goaded him to fresh enterprises. He asked and
obtained permission to conquer Florida. While this design was in
agitation, Cabeca de Vaca, one of those who had survived the
expedition of Narvaez, appeared in Spain, and for purposes of his own
spread abroad the mischievous falsehood, that Florida was the richest
country yet discovered. De Soto's plans were embraced with
enthusiasm. Nobles and gentlemen contended for the privilege of
joining his standard; and, setting sail with an ample armament, he
landed at the bay of Espiritu Santo, now Tampa Bay, in Florida, with
six hundred and twenty chosen men, a band as gallant and well
appointed, as eager in purpose and audacious in hope, as ever trod the
shores of the New World. The clangor of trumpets, the neighing of
horses, the fluttering of pennons, the glittering of helmet and lance,
startled the ancient forest with unwonted greeting. Amid this pomp of
chivalry, religion was not forgotten. The sacred vessels and vestments
with bread and wine for the Eucharist were carefully provided; and De
Soto himself declared that the enterprise was undertaken for God alone,
and seemed to be the object of His especial care. These devout

marauders could not neglect the spiritual welfare of the Indians whom
they had come to plunder; and besides fetters to bind, and bloodhounds
to hunt them, they brought priests and monks for the saving of their
souls.
The adventurers began their march. Their story has been often told. For
month after month and year after year, the procession of priests and
cavaliers, crossbowmen, arquebusiers, and Indian captives laden with
the baggage, still wandered on through wild and boundless wastes,
lured hither and thither by the ignis fatuus of their hopes. They
traversed great portions of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi,
everywhere inflicting and enduring misery, but never approaching their
phantom El Dorado. At length, in the third year of their journeying,
they reached the banks of the Mississippi, a hundred and thirty-two
years before its second discovery by Marquette. One of their number
describes the great river as almost half a league wide, deep, rapid, and
constantly rolling down trees and drift-wood on its turbid current.
The Spaniards crossed over at a point above the mouth of the Arkansas.
They advanced westward, but found no treasures,--nothing indeed but
hardships, and an Indian enemy, furious, writes one of their officers,
"as mad dogs." They heard of a country towards the