“_Through the muddied lagoon we clambered, through the mire, the slime, and the muck;_ _O’er hills and valleys we hastened, through the creeks where our cannon stuck._ _We were stung by the fierce mosquitoes, and were mocked by the chattering jay;_ _But we hewed and hacked a passage through the grass where the moccasin lay._ _Fever, and heat, and ague were friends of our ceaseless toil,_ _And many a brave Castilian was interred ’neath the friendless soil._ _We searched for the El Dorado, yet no gilded man found we,_ _Instead, a bed for our numberless dead, near the sob of the sun-gilded sea._” SONG OF DE SOTO’S MEN—1541. HERNANDO DE SOTO: DISCOVERER OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. (1496-1542) IN the old Spanish town of Seville, at the time when Pizarro and his numerous brothers were conquering the gentle Peruvians, the streets were often filled with the adventurers who had returned from Mexico, Panama, and South America, laden with the treasures of plundered cities. Among these successful cavaliers, no one had a more gallant bearing, or a more captivating presence, than Hernando de Soto, who had been with the Castilian troops in their battles upon the lofty Peruvian plains. When the rapacious Spaniards had divided the ransom of the helpless Atahuallpa, which amounted to such a fabulous sum, the ambitious De Soto’s share, it is said, was fully a million dollars of our own money. You see, therefore, that, when he returned to Spain, he could set up a princely establishment and was one of the most important citizens of the country. But, dissatisfied with the humdrum life of the civilized community in which he had hoped to end his days, he longed to go once more to this New World and discover other cities and other mines of treasure. He therefore asked the King to allow him to undertake an expedition at his own expense, for he was so rich in worldly goods that he had no need of financial assistance from the throne, which all the other discoverers and explorers has been seriously in need of. None, in fact, could have succeeded in their hazardous enterprises without the aid of the Castilian gold. Romance is a vast assistance to exploration. Men look towards the unknown, wonder what is there, and, in order to verify their conjectures, go and explore. They bring back many stories. This element was of great aid to the daring Cavalier, for a fanciful legend was then current in Spain to the effect, that, in that far-distant America, was a country so rich in gold, that its King was completely gilded. He was known as El Dorado, the gilded man, and it became generally believed that this Kingdom of the Gilded Man lay somewhere in that vast, unexplored region, then called Florida.