reat river.

It is this solemn moment which the artist has caught in the painting
bearing the above title. As in all the other pictures he has, also in
this, depicted all the important details of the occasion without
descending to such minute particularity that the painting would lose its
poetic character. The sad scene recalls vividly to the mind--in contrast
with the high hope and magnificent display of the expedition at its
start--the futility of human ambition.

The tone of the picture is heightened through the mingling of the pale
moonlight with the lurid reflection from the torches, and the coloring
altogether is such that it is in perfect harmony with the occasion.

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the subsequent fate of the remnant of
the expedition, except, perhaps, to say that the picture itself gains in
interest by contemplating that, after wandering through the pathless
forests, wading swamps, swimming rivers and fighting Indians all the
time, and deprived of their leader, and after four years of hardships
from the time that the expedition set out, those who were left made
their way to Mexico. In the meantime the beautiful wife of De Soto had
died brokenhearted, and never was there, all in all, a more tragic
ending to an expedition commenced amid so much pomp and glory and with
such sanguine expectations. His longed-for Eldorado was not found, and
yet De Soto, not unlike Columbus, gained immortality more surely than if
his expectations had been realized; for the Father of Waters, the
greatest river in the world, will always be associated with his name,
and the acquisition of the vast province of Louisiana by Spain led the
way for its subsequent transfer to the United States. It was on April
30, 1803, that through the negotiations conducted by James Monroe and
Robert Livingston the Province of Louisiana was purchased for the sum of
about $15,000,000 from France, which nation had prior thereto acquired
it from Spain.

In view of the chapters of history which a contemplation of this picture
recalls, it is of particular interest during this year (1904), when
through the magnificent Louisiana Purchase Exposition we are celebrating
the centennial anniversary of the acquisition by the United States of
the vast territory, which before De Soto and his followers the foot of
white man had never trod.

HENRY HUDSON ENTERING NEW YORK BAY

(_September 11, 1609_)

[Illustration: Copyright, 1898, by Edwar