Читать книгу The Story of American History for Elementary Schools - Albert F. Blaisdell - Страница 7

De Soto's First View of the Mississippi River.

A number of dreadful battles were fought in which De Soto lost many men. Through tangled forests and swamps the Spaniards, suffering from hunger and sickness, plodded on their weary march. De Soto would not turn back. He was determined to find gold. The proud Spaniard could not endure the thought of failure. He had promised his followers an abundance of treasure, and he resolved to keep that promise.

At last they reached the banks of a mighty river. Compared with other streams it was like the sea. It was the great Mississippi. De Soto was probably the first white man that ever gazed upon it. Under his direction the men built rafts, crossed the "Father of Waters," and pushed far on to what is now Arkansas and Missouri, in search of the fabled land of gold. They never found it. Instead of gems and gold, they found hunger, sickness, and death.

23. Death of De Soto.—At last, a little group exhausted and emaciated, they turned their steps southward and toward the great river again. De Soto was broken-hearted. A fever seized him, and he soon died.

The Indians stood in great awe of De Soto. They called him a "child of the Sun," and believed he would never die. His men therefore wished to conceal the fact of their leader's death. They wrapped his dead body in a mantle and sank it at night beneath the waters of the Mississippi. The wretched remnant of his followers managed to build a few boats, and in these they floated down the stream. A few of them at last reached friends to whom they told the story of their failure.