Nearly another year was spent in marches, exploration, and campaigning against the Indians, west of the Mississippi, and on April 17, 1542, De Soto came again to the Mississippi, at the Indian town of Guachoya, close below the mouth of the Arkansas river. There he sank into a deep despondency, worn out by the long series of disappointments and losses which had attended the whole course of his expedition; he became sick with malarial fever; and on May 21 he died, after appointing Luis de Moscoso as his successor in command. To conceal his death from the Indians, the body, wrapped in blankets and heavily weighted with sand, was sunk in the middle part of the Mississippi. The new governor and leader, Moscoso, then told the chief of the Guachoya Indians that De Soto “had ascended into the skies, as he had done on many other occasions; but as he would have to be detained there some time, he had left him in his stead.” Moscoso, after consulting the other officers, decided to march southwestward, hoping to reach Mexico; and half a year was lost in going far southwest, repenting, and returning to the Mississippi at an Indian settlement called Aminoya, where the Spaniards found a large quantity of maize, indispensable for their sustenance. This place was a short distance above Guachoya, and apparently above the mouths of the Arkansas and White rivers, on the same (west) side of the great river. Seven brigantines were there built, on which, July 2, 1543, the Spaniards, reduced to three hundred and twenty-two, embarked to go down the Mississippi, taking with them about a hundred Indian slaves to be sold if they should reach Spanish settlements. Two weeks were occupied in descending the river, by rowing and the aid of the strong current, covering a distance which was estimated as about 250 Portuguese or Spanish leagues. (From the mouth of the Arkansas to the Bayou Manchac, by the course of the Mississippi, is a distance of 446 miles, and to the present mouths of the delta, 672 miles.) The debouchure of the Mississippi was described as follows: