There were more volunteers than could be accepted; and after an exultant voyage to Cuba and thence to Florida, De Soto landed, with about 600 men and 213 horses, at Tampa Bay, May 30 (old style), 1539. Almost two years were spent in marches through inhospitable forests and swamps, fording rivers, and fighting with many tribes of Indians, but finding nothing worth plundering. After much suffering in the winter camps, in the spring of 1541 the weary and wellnigh despairing expedition came to the Mississippi River, probably at the Lower Chickasaw Bluff (in Memphis, Tennessee, and extending ten miles down the east bank of the river), near the northwest corner of the present state of Mississippi, at the distance of about four hundred miles north of the Gulf, but twice as far by the tortuous watercourse. Armed Indians in two hundred canoes, coming from up the river, saluted the Spaniards, and the chief said to De Soto “that he had come to visit, serve, and obey him; for he had heard that he was the greatest of lords, the most powerful on all the earth.” The Indians were doubtless treacherous; but here, as usual, the Spaniards were the first aggressors. When the canoes drew off from the shore, “the crossbow-men, who were in readiness,” according to the Portuguese Relation, “with loud cries shot at the Indians, and struck down five or six of them.” Delay for thirty days was required in making four large boats to transfer the cavalry and foot soldiers across the river. Beginning one morning three hours before daybreak, by many trips to and fro, they had all crossed before the sun was two hours high, effecting this important movement without molestation by their vigilant Indian enemies. Wherever they marched, the poor native people were robbed, some of them were treacherously killed, and others, taken captive, were compelled to carry burdens, or otherwise to aid the invaders. The Relation says of this river, which it calls the Rio Grande: “The distance [to cross it] was near half a league: a man standing on the shore could not be told, whether he were a man or something else, from the other side. The stream was swift, and very deep; the water, always flowing turbidly, brought along from above many trees and much timber, driven onward by its force.”