It is supposed that Osachile was at the point now called Old Town. Here De Soto was informed by captive Indians that about thirty leagues to the west there was a very rich and populous country called Appalachee. The natives were warlike in the highest degree, spreading the terror of their name through all the region around. Gold was said to abound there. The country to be passed through, before reaching that territory, was filled with gloomy swamps and impenetrable thickets, where there was opportunity for ambuscades. De Soto was told that the Appalachians would certainly destroy his whole army should he attempt to pass through those barriers and enter their borders. This peril was only an incentive to the adventurous spirit of the Spanish commander. To abandon the enterprise and return without the gold, would be not only humiliating, but would be his utter ruin. He had already expended in the undertaking all that he possessed. He had no scruples of conscience to retard his march, however sanguinary the hostility of the natives might render it. It was the doctrine of the so-called church at Rome, that Christians were entitled to the possessions of the heathen; and though De Soto himself by no means professed to be actuated by that motive, the principle unquestionably influenced nearly his whole army. But he did assume that he was a peaceful traveller, desiring to cultivate only friendly relations with the natives, and that he had a right to explore this wilderness of the new world in search of those precious medals of which the natives knew not the value, but which were of so much importance to the interest of all civilized nations. For three days the Spaniards toiled painfully along over an arid, desert plain, beneath a burning sun. About noon on the fourth day they reached a vast swamp, probably near the Estauhatchee river. This swamp was bordered by a gloomy forest, with gigantic trees, and a dense, impervious underbrush, ever stimulated to wonderful luxuriance by an almost tropical sun and a moist and spongy soil. Through this morass the Indians, during generations long since passed away, had constructed a narrow trail or path about three feet wide. This passage, on both sides, was walled up by thorny and entangled vegetation almost as impenetrable as if it were brick or stone. In the centre of this gloomy forest, there was a sheet of shallow water about a mile and a half in width and extending north and south as far as the eye could reach. The Indians had discovered a ford across this lake till they came to the main channel in the centre, which was about one hundred and twenty feet wide. This channel, in the motionless waters, was passed by a rude bridge consisting of trees tied together.