MooNF.Y] TAKDoV KXl'EDITMNS 1566—67 27 



Accordingly two soldiers were .sent on foot with Indian <;uidcs to 

 find Chisca and Icani the truth of the .stories. They rejoined the unny 

 some time after the mavch had been resumed, and reported, according 

 to the Elvas chronicler, that their ouidcs had t;d<en them through a 

 country so poor in corn, so rough, and over so high nn)uiitains that it 

 would be impossible for the army to follow, wherefore, as the way 

 gi-ew long and lingering, they had turned back after reaching a little 

 poor town where they saw nothing that wa.s of any profit. They 

 brought back with them a dressed buffalo skin which the Indians there 

 had given them, the tir.st ever obtained l)y white men, and described in 

 the quaint old chronicle as " an ox hide as thin as a calf's skin, and the 

 hair like a soft wool between the coarse and fine wool of sheep."' 



Garcila.so's glowing narrative gives a somewhat different impr(\ssion. 

 According to this author the .scouts returned full of enthusiasm for 

 the fertility of the country, and reported that the mines were of a fine 

 .species of coiJ])er. and had indications also of gold and silver, while 

 their progress from one tt)wn to another had been a contiiuial .series of 

 feastings and Indian hospitalities." However that may have been, 

 De Soto made no further efiort to reach the Cherokee mines. l)ut con- 

 tinued his course westward through the Creek country, having spent 

 altogether a month in the mountain region. 



There is no record of any .second attempt to penetrate the Cherokee 

 country for twentj^-six years (9). In 1561 the Spaniards took formal 

 pos.session of the bay of Santa Elena, now Saint Helena, neai- Port 

 Royal, on the coast of South Carolina. The next year the French 

 made an unsuccessful attempt at settlement at the same place, and in 

 lotiH Menendez made the Spanish occupancy sure by estal)lishing there 

 a fort which he called San Felipe.^ In November of that yearCa])tain 

 rluan Pardo w^as .sent with a party from the fort to explore the intei'ior. 

 Ai'companied by the chief of " Juada" (which from Vandera's narra- 

 tive we find should be "•.loara." i.e., the Sara Indians already men- 

 tioned in the De Soto chronicle), he proceeded as far as the territory of 

 that tribe, where he built a fort, but on account of the snow in the 

 mountains did not think it advisable to go farther, and returned, 

 leaving a sergeant with thirty soldiers to garri.son the i)ost. Soon 

 after his return ii(> received a letter from the sergeant stating that the 

 chief of Chi.sca — the rich mining country of which De Soto had heard — 

 was very hostil(> to the Spaniards, and that in a recent battle the latter 

 had kiUed a thou.sand of his Indians and burned fifty hon.ses with 

 almost no damage to themselves. Either the sergeant or his chronicler 

 nuist have been an unconscionable liar, as it was asserted that all this 

 was done w ith oidy fifteen men. Immediately afterward, according 

 to the same story, the sergeant marched with twenty men about a day's 



1 Elvns, Hiikluvt Society, ix, p. f>6, 18.il. SGnroilnso. La Floriilii flul Incii. p. 141. ed. 17'J3. 



>Shta, J.G.,in Winsor, Justin, Niirnitive uihI Critical History of .\niericn, ii. pp. ■.>60,27S; Boston, IXHC. 



