Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/450

Rh the South advanced the first European discoverer, the Spaniard, Ferdinand de Soto.

The discovery of the Mississippi is two poems; the one heautiful and sun-bright as its Idyllian islands and its clear waters in the North, the other as melancholy, as tragically gloomy as the tint and the scenery of the river in its southern portion, through which I am now journeying. The hero of the former is the mild, unpretending Father Marquetta. The hero of the latter is the proud warrior Ferdinand de Soto.

Soto had been the favourite companion of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru; he had distinguished himself at the storming of Cusco, and was favoured by Charles V. in Spain, and rewarded both with honour and wealth, and finally appointed by him Governor of Cuba. But his proud ambitious mind desired more. Fooled by false prophets, and most of all by his own heart, he desired to fit out an expedition at his own cost, which should advance from Florida into North America, and there conquer for the Spaniards richer treasure, and more beautiful lands than those of Mexico and Peru. And his own belief possessed so great a power of influencing the mind of the Spaniards, that vast numbers of young men of noble birth and good fortune enlisted under his command. They sold their vineyards, their houses, and valuables to purchase expensive arms, equipments and horses. Out of multitudes who offered themselves as volunteers on this new expedition of discovery he selected six hundred young men, all adventurous, wealthy and proud as himself.

A more magnificent spectacle was never beheld than that of the landing of these proud cavaliers on the shore of the New World; their banners and standards floating in the air, in the soft air of Florida, full, as it were, of youthful vitality, of the intoxicating elixir of life. Thus galloped they onward in burnished armour, “very