He then set his face northward, and, having passed a hilly country, came to a district called Chalaque, which is supposed to be the country now called Cherokee, on the upper branches of the River Savannah.* Thence he turned westward in search of a place called Chiaha, and in this route he crossed the Alleghany Ridge and came to Chiaha, where his horses and men, being excessively fatigued, rested thirty days. The horses fed in a meadow, and the people lay under the trees, the weather being very hot, and the natives in peace. This was in the months of May and June. During their abode there they heard of a country called Chisca, where was copper and another metal of the same colour. This country lay northward, and a party was sent with Indian guides to view it. Their report was that the mountains were impassable, and Soto did not attempt to proceed any farther in that direction.

From a careful inspection of the maps in the American Atlas, I am inclined to think

* [To Chalaque was seven days' march, and to Xualla, in the same direction, to the north, five days. The distance is given as two hundred and fifty leagues. If we take from this one hundred leagues, which they went in the country of Yupaha, they must have travelled about thirty-eight miles a day, through a difficult and mountainous country.-Relation, 69, 70.-H.]

that the place where Soto crossed the mountains was within the thirty-fifth degree of latitude. In Delisle's map a village called Canasaga is laid down on the N.W. side of the Alleghany, or,, as it is sometimes called, the Apalachian ridge of mountains, in that latitude; and Chiaha is said in Soto's journal to be five days westward from Canasagua.

To ascertain the situation of Chiaha we must observe that it is said to be subject to the Lord of Cosa, which is situate on an eastern branch of the Mobille; and Soto's sick men came down the river from Chiaha in boats. This river could be none but a branch of the Mobille; and his course was then turned towards the south. In this march he passed through Alibama, Talise, Tascalusa,* names which are still known and marked on the maps, till he came to the town of Mavilla, which the French pronounced Mouville and Mobille. It was then a walled town, but the walls were of wood. The inhabitants had conceived a disgust to the Spaniards, which was augmented by an outrage com.

* [The modern names are Alabama, Tallahassee probably, and Tuscaloosa. Talise is briefly described as "a great town, and situated neere unto a main river." The position of Tascalusa is not very exactly defined.-H.]

VOL. I.-Z

mitted on one of their chiefs, and finally broke out in a severe conflict, in which two thousand of the innocent natives were slain, and many of the Spaniards killed and wounded, and the town was burned. This was in the latter end of October.

It is probable that Soto intended to pass the winter in the neighbourhood of that village if he could have kept on friendly terms with the Indians, for there he could have had a communication with Cuba. There he heard that the vessels which he had sent to Cuba for supplies were arrived at Ochus [Pensacola], where he had agreed to meet them; but he kept this information secret, because he had not yet made any discoveries which his Spanish friends would think worthy of regard. The country about him was populous and hostile, and, being void of gold or silver, was not an object for him to possess at the risk of losing his army, of which above a hundred had already perished. He therefore, after staying twenty-eight days for the recovery of his wounded, determined on a retreat.

In this retreat it has been supposed that he penetrated northward beyond the Ohio. The truth is, that he began his march from Mavilla, a village near the mouth of the Mobille, on

the 18th of November, and on the 17th of December arrived at Chicaça, an Indian village of twenty houses, where they remained till the next April.

The distance, the time, the nature of the country, the course and manner of the march, and the name of the village, all concur to determine this winter-station of Soto to be a village of the Chickasaw Indians, situate on the upper part of the Yasou, a branch of the Mississippi, about eighty leagues northwestward from Mobille, and not less than one hundred and forty leagues southwestward from the Muskingum, where the great fortifications which gave rise to this inquiry are found. From Chicaça, in the spring, he went westward, and crossed a river within the thirtyfourth degree of latitude, which he called Rio Grande, and which is now known to be the Mississippi.*

On the western side of the Mississippi, after rambling all summer, he spent the next

* [At the place where they crossed "the river was half a league over, so that a man could not be distinguished from one side to the other." The description of the river fully corresponds with the peculiarities of the Mississippi. It is worthy of notice that in this route they heard of a tradition among the natives that "a white people should come and conquer their country."-Relation, &c., 109, 112.-H.]

winter, at a place called Autiamque, where he enclosed his camp with a wall of timber, the work of three days only. Within this enclosure he lodged safely during three months; and, in the succeeding spring, the extreme fatigue and anxiety which he had suffered threw him into a fever, of which he died, May 21, 1542, at Guacoya. To prevent his death from being known to the Indians, his body was sunk in the middle of a

river.

His lieutenant, Louis de Moscosco, continued to ramble on the western side of the Mississippi till the next summer, when, worn with fatigue, disappointment, and loss of men, he built seven boats, called brigantines, on the Mississippi, in which the shattered remnants, consisting of three hundred and

* [He left Autiamque the 6th of March, having hardly more than three hundred soldiers remaining, and about forty horses.-H.] + [His death is reported to have been peaceful and religious, though his life was cruel and bloody. His character was one not rare in that day, haughty, obstinate, perfidious, and selfish. yet daring, energetic, and enthusiastic.-H.]

[Louis de Moscosco had been Soto's lieutenant, or, as he is called, "camp-master-general," through the whole expedition. He was a fellow-townsman of Soto, and was named by him on his deathbed to succeed to the command of the army. Before sailing down the Mississippi, he led them westward towards Mexico between four and five hundred miles.-H.]