52 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



setting fire to the dwellings, which were utterly consumed. Our 

 best authorities agree that had the Indians not been frightened away 

 by stampeding horses, which they mistook for mustering cavalry, the 

 entire army would have been destroyed. In this battle only about 

 a dozen Spaniards were killed, but between 50 and 60 horses were 

 destroyed, a loss almost as serious as that of soldiers, since the vic- 

 tories of the Spaniards were due largely to the greater mobility 

 their cavalry gave them. At the same time so much clothing and 

 equipment was consumed in the burning houses that the survivors 

 were in a wretched condition, and they freely admitted that had the 

 Indians attacked them again immediately afterward they would have 

 perished to a man. Fortunately, another attack was not ventured 

 lintil March 15, giving them time to retemper and rehaft their 

 ^eapons and provide themselves with substitute clothing. This re- 

 conditioning took place at a secohd tillage 1 league from the one 

 where they had passed the winter. On account of this negligence in 

 posting sentinels on the night of the attack, Luis de Moscoso was 

 demoted from his position as Master of the Camp and the place given 

 to Gallegos. 



The Indian attack on the 15th was easily repulsed, and on April 

 26 the army set out once more, first stopping at a small town belong- 

 ing to the Alibamo tribe, where they sent foraging parties into the 

 country in search of provisions, having heard that a wilderness of 

 considerable extent lay before them. One of these parties, which 

 was led by Juan de Aiiasco, discovered a stockaded fort garrisoned 

 by a large body of Indians. Biedma affirms that this was not an 

 occupied town, but had been erected to challenge the courage of the 

 Europeans. De Soto ordered the place carried and this was done 

 in short order with slight loss on both sides but no further advantage 

 to the explorers, as it was not provisioned. 



On April 30, after recuperating in some measure, they resumed 

 their march westward, passing through unoccupied country wooded 

 and with many swamps, and on May 8 they came to a small tribe 

 called Quizquiz on the banks of the Mississippi, which they saw for 

 the first time, though its mouth had been observed earlier by Pineda 

 and Narvaez and probably others. On May 21 they established them- 

 selves near the bank and began making barges on which they crossed 

 on June 18, spending the night at a village belonging to a tribe called 

 Aquixo. Next day they set out toward the north, penetrated "the 

 worst tract of swamp and water they had seen in all Florida," and 

 came to the territory of a tribe called Casqui, a land "more high, 

 dry, and level" than any they saw along the river. In the principal 

 town of this tribe they set up a wooden cross and about it conducted 

 the first Christian ceremony to take place in the State of Arkansas. 



