tapestry. Looking lower the Spaniards saw that along the upper sides of the four walls ran two rows of statues, figures of men and women of natural size, each placed on a separate pedestal. The men held various weapons and each weapon was ornamented with strings of pearl. The women had nothing in their hands. All the space around these statues was covered with shields of skins and fine cane mats. The burial chests were placed on benches around the four sides of the room, but in the center upon the floor were also rows of caskets, placed one on top of another in regular gradation like pyramids. All the caskets, large and small, were filled with pearls; and the pearls, too, were distributed according to size, the largest in the largest caskets, the smallest, the seed pearls, in the smallest caskets. In all there was such a quantity of pearls that seeing it with their own eyes, the Spaniards confessed that what the princess had told them about the temple was truth and not pride and exaggeration. As she declared, even if they loaded themselves with as much as they could carry (and there were more than nine hundred of them) and loaded their three hundred horses with them, they could not take them all, there would still be hundreds of bushels of them left. And in addition there were great heaps of the largest and handsomest deerskins, dyed in different colors, and skins of other animals dressed with the hair on cured and dressed as perfectly, the Spaniards said, as could have been done in Germany or Muscovy. Around this great room were eight small rooms all filled with different weapons pikes, clubs, tomahawks, bows and arrows of all varieties and of the most exquisite workmanship; some with three-pronged heads, like harpoons, some twopronged; some with chisel edges, like daggers; some shaped like thorns. In the last room were mats of cane, so finely woven that there were few among the Spanish crossbowmen could have put a bolt through them."

The revenue officers now proposed to take from the spoils the royal fifth that belonged to his imperial majesty and to carry it away with them. But De Soto said that this would only embarrass the movements of the army with excessive luggage, that even

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now it could not carry its necessary munitions and provisions. They were not dividing the land now," he reminded them, "only exploring it."

Such is the story taken from the historians of the expedition. But, as Joel Chandler Harris says: It is just as well to believe a little of this as to believe a great deal. It was an easy matter for the survivors of the expedition to exaggerate these things and they probably took great liberties with the facts, but there is no doubt the Indians possessed many pearls. Mussels like those from which they took the gems are still to be found in the small streams and creeks of Georgia, and an enterprising boy might even now be able to find a seed pearl if he sought for it patiently."

It is not to be doubted that rich stores of pearls were found. Some were distributed to the officers and men, but the bulk of them, strange to say, were left undisturbed to await the return of the Spaniards another day. It is said that De Soto dipped into the pearls and gave his two joined hands full to each cavalier to make rosaries of, he said to say prayers for their sins on. We imagine if their prayers were in proportion to their sins they must have spent the most of their time at their devotions.

The Spaniards were greatly elated at the discovery of these riches. Some of them must have known that real pearls were estimated at a value next to diamonds, and there were undoubtedly many real pearls of great value in so large a collection, possibly rivaling the one possessed by Philip II. of Spain, which was about the size of a pigeon egg and valued at one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, or that of Cleopatra, which was valued at three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.

De Soto was urged to establish his colony in this country, which was at once beautiful, fertile and rich in treasures. But the persistent spirit of De Soto was not to be turned from its one great all-absorbing object, the search for gold. He was a man. of few words but of wonderful will power.

Accordingly he eagerly inquired of the Indians if they knew of any still greater land or chief farther inland. The princess

and her advisers had learned by this time that the best way to get rid of such unwilling guests was to answer such questions in the affirmative. They assured him that further on was a greater and more powerful chief ruling over a richer country called Chiaha. He determined at once to march thither. In answer to the objections of those who wished to remain where they were, he urged that in consequence of the recent pestilence there was not sufficient provision in the country to support the army for a month. That by continuing their march they might find gold mines. Should they fail, they could then return, and in the meantime, the Indians having replanted their land, there' would be abundance of food. He had his way and preparations were made for the journey.

The conduct of the Spaniards had been so cruel during their stay at Cofachiqui that the princess and her people had come to regard them with fear and hatred. There were some indications that the princess so far distrusted the treacherous and marblehearted Spaniards, that, like her more prudent mother, she was about to secretly escape from them by flight. In some way De Soto heard of this and appointed a guard who was to keep a constant watch upon the princess, so that she could by no possibility escape. And when he took up his march for Chiaha, May 4, 1540, the princess who had received him with so much grace, dignity and hospitality was compelled to accompany him on foot with an escort of female attendants. Even the old Spanish chronicler is moved to remark that," it was not so good usage as she deserved for the good will she showed and the good entertainment that she made him."

We fully agree with him, for there are but few instances in all history of baser ingratitude. One reason why De Soto made the princess his prisoner and carried her with the expedition was to use her influence in controlling the Indians along his line of march. In fact, the Indians of Florida, Mexico and Peru were so loyal and devoted to their rulers that they often refrained from attacking the Spaniards, lest they should imperil their lives. It was true in this case that the Indians not only did not attack

the invaders while the princess was with them, but at her command they supplied them with guides to conduct them through the wilderness, porters to carry their extra baggage and provision as it was needed along the route through her domain.

But had the Spaniards treated the princess and her people kindly and with justice all this would have been done from motives of hospitality and good will. Kindness begets kindness even among savage races.

De Soto did not accept the spirit of the letter from the noble Isabella, in which she wrote, "I will no longer persevere in this invasion of the lands of others which is always plunging me more and more deeply into difficulties." Instead of this he followed the infamous example which Pizarro, in Peru, and Cortez, in Mexico, had set him. There is nothing whatever to justify his action, as it was alike cruel, dastardly and unnecessary.

After being dragged a prisoner in the Spanish army for two or three weeks and covering a distance of about three hundred miles, she found an opportunity to escape from her treacherous and brutal captors. Passing one day through a thick forest she and her attendants suddenly darted from the train and disappeared. De Soto never saw her or heard from her again, though. every effort was made to recapture her, partly because of the casket of splendid pearls which one of her attendants carried off with her. Undoubtedly a band of her warriors were in rendezvous there to receive her.

The historian of Florida, Garcilasode la Vega, terminates his account of this princess by declaring that she possessed a truly noble soul and was worthy of an empire. Shame for his countrymen has induced him to suppress all mention of the brutal indignity to which she was subjected by De Soto, and for which, as a Castilian knight, he deserved to have been deprived of his spurs. The Portuguese narrator who accompanied the expedition states. the facts too circumstantially to leave us in any doubt about the matter, and the noble and generous Cofachiqui is to be numbered among those who suffered by trusting to the honor and justice of the plunderers of the New World.

Again quoting from Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle Remus), we feel moved to say that "De Soto's expedition was organized by the spirit of greed. It spread desolation wherever it went and it ended in disaster and despair. De Soto himself found a grave in the waters of the Mississippi, and the survivors who made their way back home were broken in health and spirit."

An attempt has been made to throw a halo of romance over the march of the Spaniards through the wilderness of the New World, but there is nothing romantic or inspiring about it. It was simply a search for riches in which hundreds of lives were most cruelly sacrificed and thousands of homes destroyed.

The only permanent good which resulted from it was the discovery of the Father of Waters and this noble, Indian Princess' Cofachiqui.