56 ' BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [boll. 73 
San Felipe, unless the site ordinarily assigned to the fort is errone- 
ous. 1 From ITscamacu they marched northwest along Broad River 
and then up the Coosawhatchie. The first stopping place after 
leaving Uscamacu was Ahoya, the Hoya of the French, one of those 
tribes or villages allied with Audusta. Ahoyabe would probably 
be an out settlement from Ahoya and hence belong to the same 
group. In the name of the next place, Cozao, we have the second 
historical mention 2 of the Coosa tribe of South Carolina, which occu- 
pied the upper reaches of the Coosawhatchie, Combahee, Ashepoo, 
Edisto, and Ashley Rivers, the first notice having been in the list 
of provinces given by Francisco of Chicora. The greater power 
ascribed to this chief agrees with our later information regarding 
the prominence of his people. From the narrative it is evident 
that the next place where the Spaniards stopped was also a Coosa 
village. The last two places may have been Coosa towns also, but 
there is no means of knowing. It has been suggested that Guiomaez 
was perhaps the later Wimbee, but, if so, the tribe must have moved 
nearer the coast before the period of English colonization, when 
they were between Combahee and Broad Rivers. The next place, 
Canos, 10 leagues from Guiomaez, was identical with the Cofitachequi 
of De Soto and probably with the later Kasihta town among the 
Creeks. 3 
Barcia mentions as one result of the Florida settlements the dis- 
covery of an herb of wonderful medicinal qualities, which was in all 
probability the nut grass ( Cyperus rotundus) . He says : 
The Spaniards discovered in this land some long roots, marked like strings of beads, 
so that each portion cut off remains rounded; outside they are black and within 
white and dry, hard like bones; the bark is so hard that one can scarcely remove it. 
The taste is aromatic, so that it appears to be a specific; the galanga is like it. The 
plant which produces it throws out short shoots, and spreads its branches along the 
ground; its leaves are very broad, and very green; it is warm (or heated) at the limit 
of the second degree, dries at the beginning of the first; it grows in moist situations: 
The Indians use the plant, crushed between two stones, to rub over their entire bodies, 
when they bathe themselves, because they say that it tightens and strengthens the 
flesh, with the good odor, which it has, and that they feel much improved on account 
of it. They also use it in the form of a powder, for pains in the stomach. 
The Spaniards learned of this from the Indians, and they used it for the same pur- 
poses, and afterwards they discovered that it was an admirable specific for colic (or 
pain in the side), and urinary trouble, since it causes the stones to be driven out, 
even though they are very large. Other virtues were discovered, its estimation 
growing so much among the soldiers, that they all carried rosaries of these beads, 
which they called "of Santa Elena" on account of the great abundance of these 
which there are in the marshy places at the Cape of Santa Elena and province of Crista 
and the neighboring parts. 4 
1 Lowery, Span. Settl., n, pp. 438-440. 
2 If Couexis De excepted. 
sScp pp. 216-218. 
<Barcia, La Florida, p. 133. See Lowery, Span. Settl., n, p. 381. 
