d, and especially to take heed that the
other Spaniards did not poison him."

"Did Mocoso stay long? and did they harm him, mamma?" asked Elsie.

"He stayed eight days in the Spanish camp," replied Violet; "being
inspired with perfect confidence in the Christians."

"Christians, mamma? What Christians?" asked Ned.

"That was what the Spaniards called themselves," she answered; "but it
was a sad misnomer; for theirs was anything else than the spirit of
Christ."

CHAPTER IV.

The next evening the same company, with some additions, gathered in
the library at Woodburn, all full of interest in the history of
Florida and anxious to learn what they could of its climate,
productions, and anything that might be known of the tribes of Indians
inhabiting it before the invasion of the Spaniards.

At the earnest request of the others Grandma Elsie was the first
narrator of the evening.

"I have been reading Wilmer's 'Travels and Adventures of De Soto,'"
she said. "He tells much that is interesting in regard to the Indians
inhabiting Florida when the Spaniards invaded it. One tribe was the
Natchez, and he says that they and other tribes also had made some
progress in civilization; but the effect of that invasion was a
relapse into barbarism from which they have never recovered. At the
time of De Soto's coming they had none of the nomadic habits for which
the North American Indians have since been remarkable. They then lived
in permanent habitations and cultivated the land, deriving their
subsistence chiefly from it, though practising hunting and fishing,
partly for subsistence and partly for sport. They were not entirely
ignorant of arts and manufactures and some which they practised were
extremely ingenious. They had domestic utensils and household
furniture which were both artistic and elegant. Their dresses,
especially those of the females, were very tasteful and ornate. Some
specimens of their earthenware are still preserved and are highly
creditable to their skill in that branch of industry. Among their
household goods they had boxes made of split cane and other material,
ingeniously wrought and ornamented; also mats for their floors. Their
wearing apparel was composed partly of skins handsomely dressed and
colored, and partly of a sort of woven cloth made of the fibrous bark
of the mulberry tree and a certain species of wild hemp. Their finest
fabrics, used by the wives and daught