to see me? Visit the town where I dwell. If you come in peace, I will receive you with special good-will; if in war, I will not shrink one foot back." But Soto was no longer able to abate the confidence or punish the temerity of the natives. His stubborn pride was changed by long disappointments into a wasting melancholy; and his health sunk rapidly and entirely under a conflict of emotions. A malignant fever ensued, during which he had little comfort, and was neither visited nor attended as the last hours of life demand. Believing his death near at hand, he held the last interview with his faithful followers; and, yielding to the wishes of his companions, who obeyed him to the 1542. end, he named a successor. On the next day he May 21. died. Thus perished Ferdinand de Soto, the governor of Cuba, the successful associate of Pizarro. His miserable end was the more observed, from the greatness of his former prosperity. His soldiers pronounced his eulogy by grieving for their loss; the priests chanted over his body the first requiems that were ever heard on the waters of the Mississippi. To conceal his death, his body was wrapped in a mantle, and in the stillness of midnight was silently sunk in the middle of the stream. The wanderer had crossed a large part of the continent in search of gold, and found nothing so remarkable as his burial-place. No longer guided by the energy and pride of Soto, June. the company resolved on reaching New Spain with out delay. Should they embark in such miserable boats as they could construct, and descend the river? Or should they seek a path to Mexico through the forests? They were unanimous in the opinion that it was less dangerous to go by land; the hope was still cherished that some wealthy state, some opulent city, might yet be discovered, and all fatigues be forgotten in the midst of victory and spoils. Again they penetrated the western wilderJuly. ness; in July, they found themselves in the country of the Natchitoches; but the Red River was so swollen that it was impossible for them to pass. They soon became bewildered. As they proceeded, the Indian guides purposely led them astray; "they went up and down through very great woods," without making any progress. The wilderness, into which they had at last wandered, was sterile and scarcely inhabited; they had now reached the great buffalo prairies of the west, the hunting-grounds of the Pawnees and Comanches, the migratory tribes on the confines of Mexico. The Spaniards believed themselves to be at least one hundred and fifty leagues west of the Mississippi. Desperate as the resolution seemed, it was determined to return once more to its banks, and follow its current to the sea. There were not wanting men, whose hopes and whose courage were not yet exhausted, who wished rather to die in the wilderness than to leave it in poverty; but Moscoso, the new governor, had long "desired to see himself in a place where he might sleep his full sleep." 1542. They came upon the Mississippi at Minoya, a few Dec. leagues above the mouth of Red River, often wading through deep waters, and grateful to God if, at night, they could find a dry resting-place. The Indians whom they had enslaved died in great numbers; in Minoya, the Christians were attacked by a dangerous epidemic, and many died. 1543. Nor was the labor yet at an end; it was no easy task Jan. to for men in their condition to build brigantines. Erect- July. ing a forge, they struck off the fetters from the slaves; and, gathering every scrap of iron in the camp, they wrought it into nails. Timber was sawed by hand with a large saw, which they had always carried with them. They calked their vessels with a weed like hemp; barrels, capable of holding water, were with difficulty made; to obtain supplies of provision, all the hogs and even the horses were killed, and their flesh preserved by drying; and the neighboring townships of Indians were so plundered of their food that the miserable inhabitants would come about the Spaniards begging for a few kernels of their own maize, and often died from weakness and want of food. The rising of the Mississippi assisted the launching of the seven brigantines; they were frail barks, which had no decks; and as, from the want of iron, the nails were of necessity short, they were constructed of very thin planks, so that any severe shock would 1543. July 2-18. have broken them in pieces. Thus provided, after a passage of seventeen days, the fugitives, on the eighteenth of July, reached the Gulf of Mexico; the distance seemed to them two hundred and fifty leagues, and was not much less than five hundred miles. They were the first to observe that for some distance from the mouth of the Mississippi the sea is not salt, so great is the volume of fresh water which the river discharges. Following, for the most part, the coast, it was more than fifty days before the men, who finally escaped, now no more than three hundred and eleven in number, on the tenth of SepSept. 10. tember entered the river Panuco. 1544. Dec. 28. Such is the history of the first voyage of Europeans on the Mississippi; the honor of the discovery belongs to the Spaniards. There were not wanting adventurers who, in 1544, desired to make one more attempt to possess the country by force of arms; their request was refused. Religious zeal was more persevering; 1547. in December, 1547, Louis Cancello, a missionary of the Dominican order, gained, through Philip, then heir apparent in Spain, permission to visit Florida, and attempt the peaceful conversion of the natives. Christianity was to conquer the land against which so many experienced warriors had failed. The Spanish governors were directed to favor the design; all slaves, that had been taken from the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico, were to be manumitted and restored to their country. In 1549 a ship was fitted out with much solemnity; but the priests, who sought the first interview with the natives, were feared as enemies, and, being immediately attacked, Louis and two others fell martyrs to their zeal. 1549. Death seemed to guard the approaches to that land. While the Castilians were everywhere else victorious, they were driven for a time to abandon the soil of Florida, after it was wet with their blood. But under that name they continued to claim all North America, even as far as Canada and Newfoundland. No history exists of their early exploration of the coast, nor is even the name of the Spanish navigator ascertained, who, between the years 1524 and 1540, discovered the Chesapeake, and made it known as "the Bay of St. Mary." Under that appellation the historian Oviedo, writing a little after 1540, describes it as opening to the sea in the latitude of thirty-six degrees and forty minutes, and as including islands; of two rivers which it receives, he calls the north-eastern one Salt River; the other, the river of the Holy Ghost; the cape to the north of it, which he places in the latitude of thirty-seven degrees, he names Cape St. John. The Bay of St. Mary is marked on all Spanish maps, after the year 1549. But as yet not a Spanish fort was erected on the Atlantic coast, not a harbor was occupied, not one settlement was begun. The first permanent establishment of the Spaniards in Florida was the result of jealous bigotry. 1562. 1555. 1562. For France had begun to settle the region with a colony of Protestants; and Calvinism, which, with the special co-operation of Calvin himself, had for a short season occupied the coasts of Brazil and the harbor of Rio Janeiro, was now to be planted on the borders of Florida. Coligny had long desired to establish a refuge for the Huguenots, and a Protestant French empire, in America. Disappointed in his first effort, by the apostasy and faithlessness of his agent, Villegagnon, he still persevered; moved alike by religious zeal, and by a passion for the honor of France. The expedition which he now planned was intrusted to the command of John Ribault, of Dieppe, a brave man, of maritime experience, and a firm Protestant; and was attended by some of the best of the young French nobility, as well as by veteran troops. The feeble Charles IX. conceded an ample commission, and in February, 1562, the squadron set sail for the shores of Feb. 18. North America. Desiring to establish their plantation in a genial clime, land was first made in the latitude of St. Augustine; the noble river which we call the St. John's was discovered, and named the river of May. May. It is the St. Matheo of the Spaniards. The forests of mulberries were admired, and caterpillars readily mistaken for silkworms. The cape received a French name; as the ships sailed along the coast, the numerous streams were called after the rivers of France; and America, for a while, had its Seine, its Loire, and its Garonne. In searching for the Jordan, or Combahee, they came upon Port Royal entrance, which seemed the outlet of a magnificent river. The greatest ships of France and the argosies of Venice could ride securely in the deep water of the harbor. They extracted turpentine from the pines, and they calked their vessels with the moss which grows on the trees of that sea-coast and so envelops the tallest aks as to form natural arbors, impervious to the sun. It was perhaps on Parris Island that a monumental stone, engraved with the arms of France, was proudly raised. To secure the region to his native land, Ribault determined to leave a party of twenty-six to keep possession of it. Fort Charles, the Carolina, so called in honor of Charles IX. of France, gave a name to the country, a century before it was occupied by the English. 1562. In July, Ribault and the ships arrived safely in July 20. France. But the fires of civil war had been kindled in all the provinces of the kingdom; and the promised reenforcements for Carolina were never levied. The situation of the French became precarious. The natives were friendly; but the soldiers themselves were insubordinate, and dissensions prevailed. The commandant at Carolina repressed the turbulent spirit with arbitrary cruelty, and lost his life in a mutiny which his ungovernable passion had provoked. The new commander succeeded in restoring order. But the love of his native land is a passion easily revived in the breast of a Frenchman; and the company resolved to embark in such a brigantine as they could themselves construct. Intoxicated with joy at the thought of returning home, they neglected to provide sufficient stores; and they were overtaken by famine at sea, with its attendant crimes. A small English bark at length boarded their vessel, and, setting the most feeble on shore upon the coast of France, carried the rest to the queen of England. Thus fell the first attempt of France in French Florida, within the southern confines of South Carolina. 1563. After the treacherous peace between Charles IX. and the Huguenots, Coligny renewed his solicitations for the |