expedition set sail, were fitted out with great splendor. De Soto was
then forty-two years of age, having been born at Xeres, Spain, in 1496,
while his followers were mostly young men, and a more gorgeous or joyous
company cannot be imagined. With them went the wife of De Soto and many
other beautiful women, and the voyage was one round of pleasure and
festivities. After landing and wintering in Cuba he started from there
in May, 1539, with a following of one thousand men in nine ships,
leaving the administration of Cuba in the hands of his wife and the
Lieutenant-Governor. The original splendor was preserved, the leaders
being clad in gorgeous armor and, followed by a host of servants and
priests, they took with them all manner of live stock, cattle, horses,
mules, etc., and were provided with all sorts of weapons and trappings,
but also, significantly, with blood-hounds, handcuffs and iron
neck-collars. Thus they landed in Florida, in the neighborhood of Tampa
Bay, and began their march northward in the month of June, 1539, the
cavaliers to the number of one hundred and thirteen on horseback, and
the rest on foot. They passed the winter near the present Georgia
border, and in the spring of 1540 reached the location of the present
city of Savannah. Instead of pacifying, they alienated the natives
through many acts of hostility, in the exuberance of their youth and
prowess, in consequence of which many members of the expedition were
killed in battle and others died through sickness and deprivation.
Nevertheless, they pushed on still further westward towards the Rocky
Mountains, and in May, 1541, discovered and crossed the Mississippi
River near Lower Chickasaw Bluff, a little north of the thirty-fourth
parallel of latitude, in Tunica County, in what is now the State of
Mississippi. On again reaching the Mississippi on the return march, De
Soto, in consequence of the exposure and hardships to which he had been
subjected, sank down with a fever from which he died on May 21, 1542.
Owing to the awe which he had inspired in the minds of the natives it
was deemed wise by the remnant of his followers to conceal the fact of
his death. Accordingly at the dead of night he was wrapped in a flag, in
which sand had been sown, and taken in a boat to the middle of the
river, and amid the glare of torches, the chanting by the priests of the
midnight mass, and his sorrowing and silent companions, solemnly
consigned to the depths of the g