62 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [dEC. 6, 



each, their cellars filled with the products of their cultivation 

 and other industries, those of the chiefs were larger and hung 

 with prepared skins in the manner of tapestry. They worshipped 

 a Great Spirit in their temples, believed in future rewards and 

 punishments, and lived under the severe, though patriarchal 

 government of their chiefs. It is a mistake to say, as historians 

 do, that the advance of the Natchez in the arts of civilization 

 was arrested by De Soto. Their relapse into barbarism dates 

 from the first expedition of Ayllon, and received a fresh impulse 

 from that of Narvaez. It was not strange that Ucita, whose ears 

 had been cut off by Narvaez, should have sent back the messen- 

 ger of De Soto, with the reply, ''Bring me no more promises 

 from these people; I want their heads ! " 



There was in De Soto's army one who became the chronicler 

 of the expedition. His name has never been certainly known. 

 He calls himself a " Knight of Elvas," and his account of the 

 expedition was first published in Portuguese in 1557. It bears 

 intrinsic evidence of its author's fidelity to truth, and many of 

 its statements have since been confirmed. It is upon his ac- 

 count that the fact that the Natchez Indians mined, smelted, 

 and wrought in gold and copper must chiefly rest. 



The route of De Soto as described by the Knight of Elvas has 

 been projected upon a chart by Mr. J. Carson Brevooi't in a 

 translation of the "Kela9am verdadiera" published by the Brad- 

 ford Club in this city in 1866. Following that chart and my 

 own translations of the Rela9am, compared with the French 

 translation of 1685, that bv Hakluyt, printed in 1609 and 

 1686, and that by Buckingham Smith for the Bradford Club, 

 it appears that the expedition marched inland from the head 

 of Apallache or Oclockonnee Bay, pursued an irregular route a 

 little east of north, crossing the Altamaha, to the Savannah 

 river, not far from the site of the present city of Augusta. Be- 

 fore leaving the coast, De Soto had fortunately secured one 

 Ortiz, a survivor of the party of Narvaez, who had been a captive 

 among the Natchez for ten years, and had acquired their lan- 

 guage. In him he had a competent interpreter in his inter- 

 course with the Indians. 



While still within a few leagues of the coast, there was brought 



