Florida had remained unoccupied, and almost disregarded, for several years, when Pamphilo de Narvaez obtained permission from the emperor Charles V. to effect its conquest; accordingly he landed on the coast in April, 1528, with three hundred men, and, erecting a standard, took possession for Spain. Fired by the successes of Cortes, they advanced up the country, hoping to find a second wealthy empire; but swamps and forests met them everywhere, and hosts of ambushed savages attacked them. Still intimations of a country northward abounding in gold, which they continued to receive from captives whom they had taken, and now employed as guides, lured them on. But they found nothing save a village of wigwams; though the guides still persisted that still farther north lay a region full of gold. Unwilling to adventure further to the north, they directed their course again southward, and reached the sea after a journey of probably 800 miles, their numbers being then greatly diminished. They constructed five boats, but of so frail a description that only desperate men would have ventured their lives in them; and Narvaez and most of his companions perished. Four of the survivors reached Mexico in the course of seven years, after a series of wonderful adventures and hardships, having travelled through Louisiana, Texas, and Northern Mexico, passing on from one tribe of Indians to another, and frequently as slaves. A marvellous story of wild adventure was theirs; and, like an earlier Robinson-Crusoe history, calculated to allure others into the same path. The most remarkable of the followers of these men, and the believers of their story, was Ferdinand de Soto, a Spanish nobleman, and courtier of Charles V., by whom he was appointed governor of Cuba. De Soto had been a favourite companion of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru, and had distinguished himself in the storming of Cusco. Believing all the wonders which were related of the golden regions of Florida, he resolved to fit out an expedition at his own cost, and conquer these lands which were believed to be more beautiful and richer than those of Mexico and Peru. His own enthusiasm excited that of others; hundreds of young men of birth and fortune enlisted in this enterprise. Property of all kinds, vineyards, houses, valuables, were all sold to purchase arms, horses, and equipments for this undertaking. From the multitudes who offered themselves for this expedition of conquest and discovery, its leader selected six hundred young men, all adventurous and ambitious as himself.