Page:Columbus and other heroes of American discovery; (IA columbusotherher00bell).pdf/55

 unknown; but it is certain that he never returned, and, to quote a quaint old chronicler whose narrative is among those preserved by the Hakluyt Society, "he was lost leaving nothing done worthy of memorie."

After this tragic conclusion of an unworthy career, Florida and its people were left undisturbed for several years, though some further details of the configuration of its eastern coast were given in 1524 by Verrazano of Florence, who sailed from the point of the peninsula as far north as Cape Breton, and whose experiences on the Atlantic seaboard are given below. The brief respite enjoyed by the unfortunate natives was, however, but a lull before a more terrible storm of invasion than any with which they had yet had to cope, for in 1528, seven years after the death of De Ayllon, Pamphilo de Narvaez, inflamed by the exaggerated accounts given by the survivors of previous expeditions as to the wealth of Florida, obtained permission from Charles V. of Germany to take possession of it in his name.

Leaving Spain in the autumn of 1527, with five ships and a force of some 600 men, Narvaez arrived, after many delays, in the Bay of Tampa, on the west coast of Florida, in February, 1528. Landing with half of his forces, the leader at once commenced his march to the interior, in spite of the remonstrances of some of the chief officers, who feared that if he once lost sight of his vessels he would never see them again. Remembering the experience of Cortes, Narvaez hoped to find a second wealthy nation to plunder; but his disappointment and dismay may be imagined when, instead of any indications of advanced civilization, he met only with vast swamps and forests teeming with naked savages, who, though they melted away at his approach, and eluded his vengeance as if by magic, hung about in the rear of his army, harassing his every movement, and picking up the stragglers for private murder and tortures worse than death.

Buoyed up through all his miseries, however, by the rumors which met him at every turn of the existence in the north of a district called Apalachen, where gold was to be had for the asking, Narvaez still pressed on, to be rewarded at last, after months of weary marching by arriving at a miserable Indian village of some forty houses—supposed to have been somewhere near the mouth of the Apalacha river, flowing from the Apalachian mountains of Georgia—from which all the able-bodied inhabitants had fled. "This," said the Indian guides—who, taken prisoners by the way, had been forced to give their unwilling services to the intruders—"this is Apalachen; it is here that the gold you long for is to be found."