SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTEiRN UNITED STATES 45 



down the river, returned with news of an Indian town and two Indians 



as guides, who took them thither. The town was named Hymahi or 



Aymay, and there they found more than 30 bushels of parched corn. 



At the abandoned camp they left a message for the other scouting 



parties indicating their whereabouts and all presently came in, but 



one of them, Juan Rodriguez Lobillo, was sent back to bring up two 



companions he had left behind. On April 30 De Soto himself went 



forward with an Indian woman as guide and reached "a large, deep 



river," the Savannah, where he camped for the night, Aiiasco being 



sent on in advance to secure interpreters and canoes in which to cross. 



Next morning De Soto joined him on the river bank opposite the town 



of Cofitachequi, and presently a kinswoman of the chieftainess came 



across to greet the Spanish commander, being followed shortly by the 



niece of that lady. This niece is the individual usually called "the 



Lady of Cofitachequi." She brought with her many presents and 



handed De Soto himself a necklace of pearls which she was wearing. 



Her people also provided canoes in which the entire army was ferried 



to her town, a part, however, being soon sent to another village called 



Ilapi where there was a plentiful supply of corn. 



The traditional site of this town is Silver Bluff about 20 miles below 

 Augusta, Ga., but on the South Carolina side of the river. This 

 identification rests in part on an Indian tradition coming through 

 the trader George Galphin, who owned the bluff in the early part of 

 the eighteenth century, but it is supported by the narratives of the 

 Pardo expedition. Juan Pardo was sent into the interior of what is 

 now South Carolina by Pedro Menendez in 1566 and 1567. He set out 

 from the Spanish post of Santa Elena near modern Beaufort, and 

 estimated that Cofitachequi was half way to the Appalachian Moun- 

 tains. He states also that it was the last Indian settlement with 

 swamps in the neighborhood and that the day after leaving it on his 

 journey toward the north they passed entirely out of the swamp 

 country. 



The chieftainess of Cofitachequi, aunt, as supposed, of the "Lady,'' 

 was not seen by her European guests although they made two efforts 

 to discover her whereabouts, and on May 13, less than 2 weeks after 

 their arrival, they set out northward in quest of another town of 

 which they had had previous intimation, a town called Co^a. 



About a league from Cofitachequi was an abandoned village called 

 Talomeco and in it a temple or ossuary of which Garcilaso de la Vega 

 gives an elaborate description, and where, as well as in the ossuary of 

 Cofitachequi itself, were quantities of pearls. In the latter they also 

 found several articles of Spanish origin which they believed, probably 

 correctly, to have been brought by the colonists of Lucas Vasquez de 

 Ayllon in 1526. The presence of an / in the name of Cofitachequi, the 



