De Soto encamped on the borders of this gloomy region for a short time to become acquainted with the route and to force the passage. There were various spots where the Indians, familiar with the whole region, lay in ambush. From their unseen coverts, they could assail the Spaniards with a shower of arrows as they defiled through the narrow pass, and escape beyond any possibility of pursuit. Compelling some Indians to operate as guides, under penalty of being torn to pieces by bloodhounds, De Soto commenced his march just after midnight. Two hundred picked men on foot, but carefully encased in armor, led the advance in a long line two abreast. Every man was furnished with his day's allowance of food in the form of roasted kernels of corn. They pressed along through a path which they could not lose, and from which they could not wander, till they reached the lake. Here the guides led them along by a narrow ford, up to their waists in water, till they reached the bridge of logs. The advance-guard had just passed over this bridge when the day dawned, and they were discovered by the Indians, who had not supposed they would attempt to cross the morass by night. The Appalachian warriors, with hideous yells and great bravery, rushed into the lake to meet their foes. Here Spaniard and Floridian grappled in the death struggle up to their waists in water. The steel-clad Spaniards, with their superior arms, prevailed, and the natives repulsed, rushed into the narrow defile upon the other side of the lake. The main body of the army pressed on, though continually and fiercely assailed by the arrows of the Indians. Arriving at a point where there was an expanse of tolerably dry ground, De Soto sent into the forests around forty skirmishers to keep off the Indians, while a hundred and fifty men were employed in felling trees and burning brush, in preparation for an encampment for the night. Exhausted by the toil of the march and of the battle; drenched with the waters of the lake; many of them suffering from wounds, they threw themselves down upon the hot and smouldering soil for sleep. But there was no repose for them that night. During all the hours of darkness, the prowling natives kept up a continuous clamor, with ever recurring assaults. With the first dawn of the morning the Spaniards resumed their march, anxious to get out of the defile and into the open prairie beyond, where they could avail themselves of their horses, of which the Indians stood in great dread. As they gradually emerged from the impenetrable thicket into the more open forest, the army could be spread out more effectually, and the horsesmen could be brought a little more into action. But here the valor of the natives did not forsake them.