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 doubt that this vast river was the Mesashapi (which he afterwards spelled Misisipi) which De Soto had explored, and beneath whose waters he had been laid seventy-three years before. The account of the expedition of De Soto had thrilled Ralph when, as a schoolboy, he had first read it in learning Spanish.

Morton thought it not best to descend the Misisipi. The land at the junction of the two rivers was too swampy for a landing, so the party pulled the boats up the Misisipi till they found high grounds on the eastern bank, where they disembarked. The boats were sunk in the mouth of a small creek to preserve them for possible further need. Then the pack-mules were loaded and the party set out by land due northward.

For a day or two they traveled through a rolling: region with considerable timber. Then they came out upon vast, grassy, treeless plains the like of which they had never seen nor heard of. The party traveled northward about a hundred and fifty miles, and then turned eastward. Traveling about eighty miles, they came to a considerable river flowing-southward. From its position Morton judged it to be one whose mouth he had noted while descending