SwANOWN] ESnDIAJSTS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNTTE'D STATES 435 



It was a square, with four equal curtains made of embedded logs, the curtain 

 of each wall being four hundred paces long. Inside this square were two other 

 curtains of wood which crossed the fort from one wall to the other. The front 

 curtain had three small doors, so low that a mounted man could not go through 

 them. One door was in the middle of the curtain and the other two were at the 

 sides near the corners. In line with these three doors there were three others 

 in each curtain, so that if the Spaniards should take the first ones, the Indians 

 could defend themselves at those of the second curtain, and of the third and the 

 fourth. The doors of the last curtain opened on a river which passed behind the 

 fort. Though narrow, this river was very deep and had such steep banks that 

 one could go up and down them only with difficulty on foot, and not at all on 

 horseback. This was the intention of the Indians, to make a fort in which they 

 could be sure that the Castilians would not attack them with the horses by enter- 

 ing through the doors or by crossing the river, but would fight on foot like them- 

 selves, for as we have said already on other occasions they had no fear whatever 

 of the infantry, as it seemed to them that they were equal or even superior to 

 them. They had bridges over the river made of wood, but so shaky and ruinous 

 that they could hardly pass over them. There were no doors at all on the sides 

 of the fort. (Garcilaso, 1723, p. 173.) 



The last sentence substantiates Biedma in his assertion that this fort 

 or stockade was built on purpose to block the passage of the Spaniards, 

 but the force of this is weakened by mention of the "ruinous" condi- 

 tion of the bridges, if we are to understand that they were ruinous 

 with age. 



We learn that the principal town of the Pacaha not only had a moat 

 and palisade, but towers like Mabila and the abandoned town Ran j el 

 describes, as also loopholes like this latter. Thus, there is some reason 

 for supposing Garcilaso's description is not far astray : 



The pueblo had five hundred large and good houses and was on a site some- 

 what higher and more elevated than its surroundings. They had made it almost 

 an island with a ditch or fosse ten or twelve fathoms deep and fifty paces wide, 

 or forty at the narrowest parts, all made by hand. It was full of water which it 

 received from the Rio Grande that we mentioned above, which flowed three 

 leagues above the pueblo. The water came through an open canal, made labori- 

 ously, which went from the fosse to the Rio Grande for this purpose. The canal 

 was three estados in depth and so wide that two of the large canoes could go up 

 and down it abreast without the oars [i. e., paddles] of one touching those of 

 the other. The fosse of water, of the width that we have said, surrounded three 

 sides of the pueblo, the work not yet being complete. The fourth side was en- 

 closed by a very strong palisade in the form of a wall made of thick logs set in 

 the ground, touching one another, and other transverse logs fastened and covered 

 with packed mud and straw such as we have described above. ( Garcilaso, 1723, 

 pp. 181-182.) 



Elvas says that there were a number of towns near this one, all 

 stockaded, and Garcilaso tells us that the island fort to which these 

 Indians retired was protected by a triple palisade. It was here that 

 the Spanish army came within an ace of being annihilated, if we 

 may trust the last mentioned author, but in this he is entirely unsup- 

 ported. (Robertson, 1933, p. 174; Garcilaso, 1723, pp. 183-184). 



