Ferdinand de Soto, eager to rival the exploits of Cortez in Mexico, and of his former commander, Pizarro, in Peru, offered to conquer Florida at his own expense. Appointed governor-general of Florida and of Cuba, he sailed with seven large and three small vessels. From Espiritu Santo Bay he, in 1539, marched with six hundred men into the country of the Appalachians and discovered the harbor of Pensacola. After wintering at Appalachee he set out into the interior, said to abound in gold and silver. Penetrating northeasterly as far as the Savannah, he found only copper and mica. From here he marched first northwest into northern central Georgia, then southwest into Alabama. A battle was fought with the natives at Mavila, or Mobile, in which the Spaniards suffered serious loss. Ships that he had ordered arrived at Pensacola, but de Soto determined not to embark until success should have crowned his efforts. He turned back into the interior, into the country of the Chickasaws, marched diagonally over the present State of Mississippi to its northwest corner, and crossed the Mississippi River near the lowest Chickasaw Bluff. From this point the general direction of the Spanish progress was southwest, through what is now Arkansas, past the site of Little Rock, till at last a river which seems to have been the Washita was reached. Down this stream de Soto and his decimated force floated--two hundred and fifty of his men had succumbed to the hardships and perils of his march--arriving at the junction of the Red with the Mississippi River on Sunday, April 17, 1542. At this point de Soto sickened and died, turning over the command to Luis de Moscoso. Burying their late leader's corpse at night deep in the bosom of the great river, and constructing themselves boats, the survivors of this ill-fated expedition, now reduced to three hundred and seventy-two persons, made the best of their way down the Mississippi to the Gulf, and along its coast, finally reaching the Spanish town near the mouth of the Panuco in Mexico. [Illustration: A Palisaded Indian Town in Alabama.] [Illustration: Burial of de Soto in the Mississippi at night.] [1562]