Our next authorities are very important. They are the narrators of Captain Hernando de Soto’s famous and ill starred expedition. Of this we have the brief account of Biedma, the longer story of “the gentleman of Elvas,” a Portuguese soldier of fortune, intelligent and clear-headed, and the poetical and brilliant composition of Garcilasso de la Vega. In all of these we find the southern tribes described as constructing artificial mounds, using earthworks for defence, excavating ditches and canals, etc. I quote the following passage in illustration: “The town and the house of the Cacique Ossachile are like those of the other caciques in Florida. * * * The Indians try to place their villages on elevated sites; but inasmuch as in Florida there are not many sites of this kind where they can conveniently build, they erect elevations themselves in the following manner: They select the spot and carry there a quantity of earth which they form into a kind of platform two or three pikes in height, the summit of which is large enough to give room for twelve, fifteen or twenty houses, to lodge the cacique and his attendants. At the foot of this elevation they mark out a square place according to the size of the village, around which the leading men have their houses. * * * To ascend the elevation they have a straight passage way from bottom to top, fifteen or twenty feet wide. Here steps are made by massive beams, and others are planted firmly in the ground to serve as walls. On all other sides of the platform, the sides are cut steep.”[64] Later on La Vega describes the village of Capaha: “This village is situated on a small hill, and it has about five hundred good houses, surrounded with a ditch ten or twelve cubits (brazas) deep, and a width of fifty paces in most places, in others forty. The ditch is filled with water from a canal which has been cut from the town to Chicagua. The canal is three leagues in length, at least a pike in depth, and so wide that two large boats could easily ascend or descend it, side by side. The ditch which is filled with water from this canal surrounds the town except in one spot, which is closed by heavy beams planted in the earth.”[65] Biedma remarks in one passage, speaking of the provinces of Ycasqui and Pacaha: “The caciques of this region were accustomed to erect near the house where they lived very high mounds (_tertres très-elevèes_), and there were some who placed their houses on the top of these mounds.”[66]