Soto and the Mississippi—The Gate to the Wilderness—The _Voyageur_—Champlain to Mackinaw—Pandemonium of Wars—Down the Mississippi to Soto's Grave—Louisiana—La Salle and His Death—_Coureurs de Bois_—First Sight of the Northern Rockies—Where Rolls the Oregon—The American Revolution. While Coronado was striving from the direction of Mexico to reach the mirage-like cities of Quivira, which the deceitful Turk asserted were somewhere eastward of the Rio Grande, and in search of which he arrived in some locality not many miles from the present site of Kansas City,[49] another Spaniard, whose name is better known, not for greater deeds, but because the country he traversed is more familiar, and because of his romantic burial at night beneath the turbid flood he had been second to discover, was marching and fighting towards the great river so permanently linked with his name. This was Hernando de Soto, who, in 1539, had landed with a large force at Tampa Bay for the purpose of conquering and appropriating to his heart's desire all of Florida, a realm comprising then the whole continent east of the River of Palms, now the Rio Grande. His cruelties to the natives were frightful, and as he wandered he left a trail of mingled Spanish and native blood, which at length led him, in 1541, to the Mississippi, where he crossed some distance above the mouth of the Arkansas. Near Tampa he had captured a white man, a survivor of the Narvaez party, who had been preserved among the natives by the intercession of a chief's daughter, and this Juan Ortiz should have been a reminder of the fate of Narvaez, a fate largely due to imprudence, bad management, and a disregard for the rights of natives; but it seems to have conveyed no warning. Continuing his harsh career into the Wilderness as far as what is now central Arkansas, he turned south and passed the winter of 1541-42 in north-western Louisiana, or south-western Arkansas. Coronado spent this same winter at Tiguex, on the Rio Grande, where the inhabitants declared the Spaniards had no regard for friendship or their pledged word. In the spring Soto went down to the mouth of Red River. There his health failed. He died, and his followers, to prevent the natives from finding his grave, buried him in the deep water of the river. The command fell to Moscoso de Alvarado, who now led the company again westward, hoping to come to Spanish settlements, but when he arrived in Texas at the upper part of Trinity River he abandoned the attempt and returned to the Mississippi.