Pioneers of France in the New World | Page 9

north where maize
could not be cultivated because the vast herds of wild cattle devoured it.
They penetrated so far that they entered the range of the roving prairie
tribes; for, one day, as they pushed their way with difficulty across
great plains covered with tall, rank grass, they met a band of savages
who dwelt in lodges of skins sewed together, subsisting on game alone,
and wandering perpetually from place to place. Finding neither gold
nor the South Sea, for both of which they had hoped, they returned to
the banks of the Mississippi.
De Soto, says one of those who accompanied him, was a "stern man,
and of few words." Even in the midst of reverses, his will had been law
to his followers, and he had sustained himself through the depths of
disappointment with the energy of a stubborn pride. But his hour was
come. He fell into deep dejection, followed by an attack of fever, and
soon after died miserably. To preserve his body from the Indians, his
followers sank it at midnight in the river, and the sullen waters of the
Mississippi buried his ambition and his hopes.
The adventurers were now, with few exceptions, disgusted with the

enterprise, and longed only to escape from the scene of their miseries.
After a vain attempt to reach Mexico by land, they again turned back to
the Mississippi, and labored, with all the resources which their
desperate necessity could suggest, to construct vessels in which they
might make their way to some Christian settlement. Their condition
was most forlorn. Few of their horses remained alive; their baggage had
been destroyed at the burning of the Indian town of Mavila, and many
of the soldiers were without armor and without weapons. In place of the
gallant array which, more than three years before, had left the harbor of
Espiritu Santo, a company of sickly and starving men were laboring
among the swampy forests of the Mississippi, some clad in skins, and
some in mats woven from a kind of wild vine.
Seven brigantines were finished and launched; and, trusting their lives
on board these frail vessels, they descended the Mississippi, running
the gantlet between hostile tribes, who fiercely attacked them. Reaching
the Gulf, though not without the loss of eleven of their number, they
made sail for the Spanish settlement on the river Panuco, where they
arrived safely, and where the inhabitants met them with a cordial
welcome. Three hundred and eleven men thus escaped with life,
leaving behind them the bones of their comrades strewn broadcast
through the wilderness. [FN#7]
De Soto's fate proved an insufficient warning, for those were still found
who begged a fresh commission for the conquest of Florida; but the
Emperor would not hear them. A more pacific enterprise was
undertaken by Cancello, a Dominican monk, who with several brother
ecclesiastics undertook to convert the natives to the true faith, but was
murdered in the attempt. Nine years later, a plan was formed for the
colonization of Florida, and Guido de las Bazares sailed to explore the
coasts, and find a spot suitable for the establishment.[FN#8] After his
return, a squadron, commanded by Angel de Villafane, and freighted
with supplies and men, put to sea from San Juan d'Ulloa; but the
elements were adverse, and the result was a total failure. Not a
Spaniard had yet gained foothold in Florida.
That name, as the Spaniards of that day understood it, comprehended
the whole country extending from the Atlantic on the east to the
longitude of New Mexico on the west, and from the Gulf of Mexico
and the River of Palms indefinitely northward towards the polar sea.

This vast territory was claimed by Spain in right of the discoveries of
Columbus, the grant of the Pope, and the various expeditions
mentioned above. England claimed it in right of the discoveries of
Cabot; while France could advance no better title than might be derived
from the voyage of Verazzano and vague traditions of earlier visits of
Breton adventurers.
With restless jealousy Spain watched the domain which she could not
occupy, and on France especially she kept an eye of deep distrust.
When, in 1541, Cartier and Roberval essayed to plant a colony in the
part of ancient Spanish Florida now called Canada, she sent spies and
fitted out caravels to watch that abortive enterprise. Her fears proved
just. Canada, indeed, was long to remain a solitude; but, despite the
Papal bounty gifting Spain with exclusive ownership of a hemisphere,
France and Heresy at length took root in the sultry forests of modern
Florida.

CHAPTER II
1550-1558.
VILLEGAGNON.
In the middle of the sixteenth century, Spain was the incubus of Europe.
Gloomy and portentous, she chilled the world with her baneful shadow.
Her old feudal liberties