DEATH AND BURIAL OF DE SOTO. The severe winter of 1541-1542 discouraged the hardy travelers, who had now spent nearly three years in a vain search. The natives whom they had found made clothing from the fiber in the bark of mulberry trees and from the hides of buffaloes, and stored beans and corn for food, but such things seemed of little value to the seekers for the Gilded Man. De Soto returned to the Mississippi and prepared to establish a colony somewhere near the mouth of the Red River. It was his purpose to send to Cuba for supplies, and, with this settlement as a base, make a farther search in the plains of the great West. He did not live to carry out his plan. Long exposure and anxiety had weakened him. The malaria of the swamps attacked him, and he died within a few days. His body was wrapped in mantles weighted with sand, carried in a canoe, and secretly lowered in the midst of the great river he had discovered. His successor tried to conceal De Soto's death from the Indians. The Spaniards had called their leader the Child of the Sun, and now he had died like any other mortal. They were afraid if the Indians found his body they would cease to believe that the strangers were immortal and would massacre them all. The Indians were told that the great leader had gone to Heaven, as he had often done before, and that he would return in a few days. RESULTS OF DE SOTO'S JOURNEY. The weary survivors built boats, floated down the Mississippi into the Gulf, and sailed cautiously along the coasts to Mexico. They had been gone four years and three months, and half of the army which set out had perished. However, the expedition of De Soto will always remain one of the most remarkable journeys in the history of North America. It had extended the Spanish claims far into the interior. With it had begun the written history of the country now composing at least eight states in the United States, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. It had perhaps reached the present Oklahoma and Texas, and had certainly passed down the Mississippi River through Louisiana. THE STORY OF THE SEVEN CITIES. While De Soto was exploring the southeastern part of North America a second expedition searched the southwest. Both were looking for rich Indian kingdoms like Mexico and Peru. The second expedition came about in this manner. Some of the Indians from northern Mexico told the Spaniards a strange tale of how in the distant past their ancestors came forth from seven caves. [Illustration: AN INDIAN OF NORTHERN MEXICO]