he daughter to seek her mother, under the
conduct of an Indian who offered to conduct them to her place of
concealment. While on this expedition, the Spaniards recollected that
Peter and Mark had reported there was both gold and silver in that
province; but upon search they found much copper of a golden colour, and
great plates of _ore_[162] which was very light and mouldered away like
earth, which probably had deceived the young Indians. A wonderful
quantity of pearls were found, and the old lady gave them leave to go
into a sacred house where the chiefs or nobles of the tribe were buried,
to take what pearls were there, and to another temple, or sepulchre
rather, near the town, in which the bodies of her own ancestors were
reposited, where they found pearls in still greater abundance. In these
repositories of the dead they found a number of wooden chests in which
the bodies were laid; and beside them in baskets made of reeds there
were great quantities of large and seed pearls, as also garments both
for men and women, made of skins and fine furs. So great was the
abundance of pearls found on this occasion, that the kings officers
weighed five hundred pounds weight. As Soto was unwilling to encumber
his troops with so much additional weight, he proposed that no more than
fifty pounds should be then taken, to send to the Havannah to learn
their value; but as they were already weighed, the officers begged that
they might be all carried away, to which he consented, and gave his
captains two handfuls of pearls as large as pease to make strings of
beads or rosaries.

[Footnote 162: These large plates of _ore_, were probably
silver-coloured mica; and the golden-coloured copper in the text may
have been bright yellow pyrites.--E.]

Leaving Cofachiqui, the army came to another town called _Tolomeco_, in
a temple or charnel-house more properly of which place, opposite the
residence of the chief, they found strings of large pearls hanging on
the walls, and others in chests, with many fine garments like those
formerly mentioned; and in rooms over this charnel-house were great
numbers of pikes with copper heads resembling gold, and clubs, staves,
and axes of the same metal, and bows, arrows, targets, and
breast-plates. Soto would not take away any of these, being resolved to
continue his march. Accordingly, taking leave of the princess of
Cofachiqui, he divided the army into two parts for the better
convenience of provisions, re