No region before entered, had so impressed DeSoto, as this one. He was charmed by its natural grandeur. The late dry fall had enlivened the autumnal scenery, the grass was still green, which, together with the flaming foliage of the forests, lent magnificence to a wide scene. The soil was of a deep black, and the surface somewhat rolling, the billows of green and the delicious color of the engirdling woods, affording a view lovelier than any he had ever before witnessed. The troop was now passing through the upper part of Greene County, where it borders on Pickens. Five days more brought the Spaniards to the bank of the Little Tombeckbe. The Spaniards were impressed by the fact that in proportion to the fertility of the country, was a sparseness of population, the explanation being that the Indian detests prairie mud, making his home on the uplands, and descending to the fertile plains only to replenish his store of meat. Again at the Little Tombeckbe, the Indians appeared in hostile array, and DeSoto, eager to avoid battle, sent a friendly Indian across the stream to negotiate terms of peace. Him they slew within sight of the Spaniards, and then strangely fled to the woods, and DeSoto crossed without further interruption. He was now on the eastern border of Mississippi, but the final act of the tragedy was yet to come. THE CLOSING SCENE Though we have followed the daring and dashing DeSoto to the western confines of the state, the story would be incomplete without a record of the closing scene of his career. His life was thrilling in incident, even to the end. Entering the territory which long afterward came to be called Mississippi, DeSoto found it the most fertile and prosperous of the regions yet visited. Thriving Indian towns abounded with evidence of the most advanced Indian civilization he had yet met.