SWANTONJ INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNHTED STATES 43 



(the Flint). The river was high and the current swift and they 

 were obliged to construct a barge fastened at each end by a cable, 

 in which men and equipment could be drawn across. All did not 

 effect the passage until March 10. Next day they reached the main 

 settlements of Capachequi, where they spent 5 days although the 

 inhabitants were unfriendly. This province probably lay about the 

 point where the Georgia counties Miller, Early, and Baker come 

 together. 



They left Capachequi on March 17 and spent the night at a very 

 beautiful spring they called White Spring, probably at the head of 

 Alligator Creek. Next day they reached the Eiver Toa (the Ichaway- 

 nochaway), which they also found high and running with a swift 

 current, so that two attempts at bridge building failed until a device 

 suggested by Nufio de Tobar was tried, after which the bridge held 

 and by March 22 all were across. Early on the 23d they arrived 

 at a large village called Toa, which is plausibly identified with a site 

 around two Indian mounds on what is called Pine Island in 

 Dougherty County, Ga. 



About midnight of the same day, De Soto set forward with 40 

 horsemen and a large body of foot soldiers to reconnoitre a tribe 

 farther on called Chisi or Ichisi. There is reason to think that the 

 Toa Indians were connected with the Hitchiti, but the name of the 

 Ichisi is similar to the word by which true Muskogee were known to 

 the Hitchiti, and it is probable that this tribe, which they found 

 peacefully inclined, unlike those they had been among, was related 

 to the Muskogee or Creeks proper. De Soto first came upon a village 

 on an island and then to other villages, to a bad passage in another 

 stream or swamp, where a Portuguese, Benito Fernandez, was drowned, 

 and to a town beyond that where they were met by messengers from 

 the tribal chief. Two days more brought them to the place of resi- 

 dence of this chief on the opposite side of a river which they call Rio 

 Grande. This Rio Grande can only have been the Flint, and it is 

 surmised that the island town which they first reached was in the 

 Kinchafoonee and that the "bad passage" was the crossing of the 

 Muckalee. 



Because this was the first chief "who came to them in peace," 

 they "borrowed" only a few carriers from him, and they set up a 

 wooden cross on the mound of his village. This was on April 1, and 

 the next day they set out again, arriving on the 3d at a river which 

 had its course eastward instead of south. There dwelt the Altamaha 

 Indians (part of the Yamasee), who were also friendly. The chief 

 directed them first to a town where they could obtain food and next 

 day sent canoes to take them to his own side of the river, where they 

 remained from April 4 until the 8th. On the 7th they set up a 



