uez was making his first settlements in Cuba,
that Juan Ponce de Leon obtained a royal charter to discover and to
settle the Island of Bimini, as it was called, on which there was
reputed to be a fountain of extraordinary curative powers, capable of
restoring to the aged all the vigor of youth. Actual colonization of
Florida was not undertaken, however, until 1521, in which enterprise
Ponce de Leon himself was wounded in a fight with Indians, and came to
Cuba to die. Again in 1527 Panfilo de Narvaez led a large expedition
from Cuba to Florida, in which he and all but four of his six hundred
men were lost in Indian fighting and in a great Gulf storm.

[Illustration: HERNANDO DE SOTO]

There next came upon the scene a far more formidable personage than any
of these, or indeed than any who had visited Cuba since Columbus with
the exception of Cortez. This was none other than Hernando de Soto. Like
many another famous Spanish conquistador, he was an impoverished
nobleman of Estremadura, who had been in youth a protege of the infamous
Pedrarias d'Avila, the constructive murderer of Balboa and the scourge
of Darien. Through the bounty of d'Avila he had passed through a
university; he had gone to Darien with his patron in 1519; and in 1532
he had gone with reenforcements to Pizarro in Peru. There he played a
great part, personally seizing the Inca monarch, Atahualpa, and
discovering the mountain pass which led to the treasure city of Cuzco.
Incidentally he seized for himself a vast fortune, with which he
returned to Spain, where he married the daughter of d'Avila and for a
time settled down in splendid state.

When, however, Cabeza de Vaca, one of the four survivors of the last
expedition of Narvaez, reached Spain with stories of the marvellous
wealth of Florida, de Soto's adventurous spirit, or his cupidity, was
again aroused. He disposed of part of his estates, purchased and armed
four ships, recruited a force of 620 foot soldiers and 120 horsemen, and
sought from the King a commission to explore, conquer and colonize
Florida. In him the King apparently saw, as he imagined, the solution of
the problem, what to do about Cuba. He accordingly joined Florida and
Cuba together, politically, making de Soto Adelantado of the former and
governor of the latter. With this commission de Soto sailed from Spain
in April, 1538, bound first for Cuba and thence for Florida. The
expedition called for a time at the Canary Islands, where its