202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



natural that the chiefs were lodged in a manner superior to their 

 subjects. The following description (Garcilaso de la Vega, His- 

 toria de la Florida) will apply generally to all the capitals and 

 habitations of the chiefs in Florida : 



They always endeavored to place their towns upon elevated 

 sites ; but, because such situations are rare in Florida, or on ac- 

 count of difficulty in procuring suitable materials for building, 

 they raised eminences (mounds). Choosing a suitable place, they 

 brought a great quantity of earth, which they raised into a kind 

 of platform, sometimes of a very considerable height, the flat top 

 of which was capable of holding from ten to twenty houses, to 

 lodge the cacique (chief), his family, and suite. The sides of the 

 mound were made so steep that it was impossible to ascend but 

 by steps, or causeways of earth, sloping gradually to the ground. 

 Around the foot they traced a square, conformable to the extent 

 of the town they intended to build, and around this square the 

 more considerable people built their dwellings. The commonalty 

 built around them in the same manner; the whole population 

 thus surrounding their chief. 



The house of the cacique was larger and more commodious 

 than the houses of the people, but not otherwise materially differ- 

 ent ; though a Portuguese gentleman who accompanied De Soto 

 describes the houses of the chiefs in some parts of the present 

 State of Alabama as having had porticoes to their doors. 



It is stated that in the dwelling of the Cacique of Palisema the 

 inner apartment was hung with buckskins so well dried and 

 wrought " that one would have taken them for good tapestry, the 

 floor being also covered with the same." The furniture in the 

 dwellings of the Natchez corresponded with their superior con- 

 struction. They had an equivalent for a bedstead, and also wooden 

 seats or stools, boxes, baskets, and mats of split cane, finely 

 wrought and ornamented. 



Their tools, like those of the barbarous tribes, were made of 

 bones, flints, etc., although copper was sometimes used. In the 

 history of De Soto's invasion we read of copper axes or hatchets, 

 pikes with copper heads, staves, clubs, etc., made partly or entirely 

 of copper. They also made "kettles of an extraordinary size, 

 pitchers with small mouths, gallon bottles with long necks, and 

 pots or pitchers for bear oil which would hold forty pints." 

 They made salt from the water of saline springs near the mouth 

 of the Arkansas River, evaporating it in earthen pans made for 

 the purpose, which left the salt formed into square cakes. Their 

 dress was much like that of the ruder tribes, which, however, they 

 surpassed in the manufacture of clothing from wild hemp, mul- 

 berry bark, and feathers. McCulloh states that fans made from 

 feathers were used by the Natchez nobility. 



