contemplations
of that man. He had discovered it a thousand miles from its mouth, two
thousand from its source. No one had ever seen its rise,--no one its
exit into the ocean. But it was reserved for the Governor of Cuba to
find it through a wilderness, at a place and under circumstances the
most thrilling and romantic. Four years previous to this discovery,
he embarked for Florida with an outfit of a thousand men, with arms,
munitions, priests and chains. His object, the conquest of a country
teeming with wealth and splendour, like that which his former Captain
found in the conquest of Peru. He penetrated Florida, Georgia and
Alabama, finding no gold--no splendid Montezuma--nothing but savages
breathing out an innocent and monotonous existence, inhabiting a
country in a state of nature alone. After hardships the most unheard
of, disappointments the most mortifying, the proud and enterprising De
Soto threw his troops into Mauville, a large town near the confluence
of the Bigby and Alabama. Here a most disastrous battle attended him,
for although he routed the enemy in the death of thousands, he lost
all his baggage and most of his horses. His fleet then lay at the bay
of Pensacola, awaiting his arrival, and by reaching it in a few
days he could have terminated his disastrous campaign. But the proud
Castilian was not to be subdued by misfortunes and disappointments.
He determined to find just such a country as he had constantly sought.
Fired with fresh intelligence of the magnificence of the people who
lived near the "Father of Waters," we find him pursuing his expedition
in a sun-set direction in company with his jaded, reduced and
dispirited force, with a fortitude and courage which none but a
Spaniard knows. He surmounted innumerable difficulties, which both
nature and man interposed to arrest his progress; and finally, through
a dense and almost endless forest, he suddenly gratified his vision
with the majestic Mississippi. Crossing over the great river, he
toiled in the prairies and swamps of Arkansas and Missouri, until
wants and vicissitudes of the most trying character impelled his
return. Arrived once more upon its virgin banks, his lofty spirit
fell, and brooding over his fallen fortunes, a fever terminated his
existence far from home, in the American wilds!

Just before he passed from life, he caused his officers to surround
his bed, appointed Luis de Muscoso his successor in command, and bid
them an affecti