Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/332

 they supplied themselves to their utmost satisfaction. Amongst them we readily recognize the Silurus or Cat-fish, which the natives called Bagres; those of the lakes were about the bigness of pikes, but in the river (Mississippi), they occasionally found some which weighed upwards of 100lbs. There was another which they called the Pele-*fish, destitute of scales, and with the upper jaw extended in front a foot in length, in the form of a peel or spatula.^{[255]}

From this place, De Soto despatched a troop of 30 horse and 50 foot to the province of Caluça, to ascertain the practicability of proceeding to Chisca, where the natives, it may be remembered, had informed him of the existence of a mine of gold and of copper. The country over which {255} they proceeded, for seven days, was an uninhabited desert (probably in consequence of inundation), and they returned almost exhausted with famine and fatigue, existing almost entirely upon green plums, and stalks of maize, which they found in a poor town of six or seven houses.^{[256]} From thence, towards the north, they learnt that the country was very cold and thinly settled, and so overrun with herds of bison, that it was scarcely possible to defend their maize from depredation; they also afforded the principal article of provision on which the natives subsisted.

Perceiving no possibility of supplying his troops in