Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/65



a hopeless band of fugitives to escape from an avenging and relentless enemy.

The only plan that seemed to offer a chance for extrication from the perils which encompassed them was to return to the “Rio Grande,” as they called it, and construct some buildings to better care for the disabled, build boats, send a portion of the command down the river to the Gulf of Mexico in search of an aid, while the others defended themselves, in rude fortifications, from the Indians. They followed down the valley of the Arkansas River to its junction with the Mississippi, selected a site for the army, encountered in constructing vessels from green trees were almost insurmountable. The Indians assailed them day and night, while decease was rapidly thinning their ranks.

De Soto was finally prostrated with fever, and in his delirium raved wildly over the failure of all of his plans. Death came and forever ended all his schemes and ambition. His followers gathered sadly about his silent form, while the priests chanted a solemn requiem—the first ever heard in the valley of the Mississippi—over the remains of the departed commander. In order to conceal his death from the Indians, the body was enclosed in a cavity hewn in a green oak log. He was wrapped in his military cloak, and the rude coffin rowed into the middle of the river and sunk beneath its waters. Thus his last resting place became the great river of the continent, and for all time he will live in history as its discoverer.

When the vessels were completed the army was reduced by three hundred and fifty, including the sick. They descended the river, the first White man to navigate the waters. Reaching the gulf, they landed on an unsettled coast and wandered for months on the verge of starvation. Finally the survivors, two hundred and fifty in number, reached a Spanish settlement in Mexico.

Spain was entitled to hold all of the region which the armies under Narvaez, Nunez and De Soto had traversed.