Still the vast Florida region was unexplored, but in 1539 Hernando de Soto, the companion of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru (1532) landed, with upward of six hundred men, at what is now called Tampa Bay, on the west coast, in search of the fabulous wealth believed to await him. "For month after month and year after year the procession of priests and cavaliers, cross-bowmen, arquebusiers, and Indian captives laden with the baggage, wandered on through wild and boundless wastes, lured hither and thither by the _ignis fatuus_ of their hopes." Through untold hardships, increased by fierce battles with the Indians, they traversed wide regions now embraced in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, reaching the great river probably in the spring of 1541, and still looking for the "phantom El Dorado." De Soto directed his footsteps in a westerly direction, carefully avoiding an approach to the sea, lest his troops should rise in mutiny, send for the ships, and escape from the ill-starred enterprise. This certainly indicates, under the circumstances, an unsound, if not a deranged, mind. For four days the troops toiled along through a dismal region, uninhabited, and encumbered with tangled forests and almost impassable swamps. At length they came to a small village called Chisca, upon the banks of the most majestic stream they had yet discovered. Sublimely the mighty flood, a mile and a half in width, rolled by them. The current was rapid and bore upon its bosom a vast amount of trees, logs, and driftwood, showing that its sources must be hundreds of leagues far away in the unknown interior. This was the mighty Mississippi, the "Father of Waters." The Indians at that point called it Chucagua. Its source and its embouchure were alike unknown to De Soto. Little was he then aware of the magnitude of the discovery he had made. "De Soto," says Irving, "was the first European who looked out upon the turbid waters of this magnificent river; and that event has more surely enrolled his name among those who will ever live in American history than if he had discovered mines of silver and gold." The Spaniards had reached the river after a four days' march through an unpeopled wilderness. The Indians of Chisca knew nothing of their approach, and probably had never heard of their being in the country. The tribe inhabiting the region of which Chisca was the metropolis was by no means as formidable as many whom they had already encountered. The dwelling of the cacique stood on a large artificial mound from eighteen to twenty feet in height. It was ascended by two ladders, which could of course be easily drawn up, leaving the royal family thus quite isolated from the people below.