er and mica. From here he marched first northwest into northern
central Georgia, then southwest into Alabama. A battle was fought with
the natives at Mavila, or Mobile, in which the Spaniards suffered
serious loss. Ships that he had ordered arrived at Pensacola, but de
Soto determined not to embark until success should have crowned his
efforts. He turned back into the interior, into the country of the
Chickasaws, marched diagonally over the present State of Mississippi to
its northwest corner, and crossed the Mississippi River near the lowest
Chickasaw Bluff. From this point the general direction of the Spanish
progress was southwest, through what is now Arkansas, past the site of
Little Rock, till at last a river which seems to have been the Washita
was reached. Down this stream de Soto and his decimated force
floated--two hundred and fifty of his men had succumbed to the hardships
and perils of his march--arriving at the junction of the Red with the
Mississippi River on Sunday, April 17, 1542. At this point de Soto
sickened and died, turning over the command to Luis de Moscoso. Burying
their late leader's corpse at night deep in the bosom of the great
river, and constructing themselves boats, the survivors of this
ill-fated expedition, now reduced to three hundred and seventy-two
persons, made the best of their way down the Mississippi to the Gulf,
and along its coast, finally reaching the Spanish town near the mouth of
the Panuco in Mexico.

[Illustration: A Palisaded Indian Town in Alabama.]

[Illustration: Burial of de Soto in the Mississippi at night.]

[1562]

Thus no settlement had as yet been made in Florida by the Spanish. The
first occupation destined to be permanent was brought about through
religious jealousy inspired by the establishment of a French Protestant
(Huguenot) colony in the territory. Ribault, a French captain
commissioned by Charles IX., was put in command of an expedition by that
famous Huguenot, Admiral Coligny, and landed on the coast of Florida, at
the mouth of the St. John's, which he called the River of May. This was
in 1562. The name Carolina, which that section still bears, was given to
a fort at Port Royal, or St. Helena. Ribault returned to France, where
civil war was then raging between the Catholics and the Protestants or
Huguenots. His colony, waiting for promised aid and foolishly making no
attempt to cultivate the soil, soon languished. Dissensions arose, and
an effort was ma