Some tribes kept their dead unburied for a certain time in a rude sort of pantheon, or temple, dedicated to their gods.[5] Over this a strict watch was kept to guard against the intrusion of evil spirits who were supposed to lie in wait, in the form of some prowling beast of prey. This custom sprung from a belief that the spirits of the dead revisited their mortal bodies at times. Besides maize, pumpkins, beans, and melons, whatever natural fruits the country produced the Indian lived on. He hunted and fished. The summer was his season of plenty, the winter one of want, sometimes of distress, but in the semi-tropical region, bordering upon the Gulf, his wants were fewer and more easily supplied, and hence, as a rule, life was freer from hardship than in more northern climes. [Illustration: PROCESSIONAL FANS.] The stronger nations made war upon the weaker, but treaties were duly respected. The vanquished were compelled to pay tribute to the conquerors or join themselves with some stronger tribe than their own. The languages differed so much with different nations, that De Soto found he must have a new interpreter for every new nation he visited; nevertheless the Indians quickly learned to speak the Spanish tongue. In public the people behaved with great propriety, showed respect for their rulers, and often confounded De Soto, who pretended to supernatural powers, by the shrewdness of their replies. For instance, when the Spaniard gave out that he was the child of the sun, a Natchez chief promptly bid him dry up the river, and he would believe him. In some places the Indians greeted the Spaniards with songs and music. Their instruments were reeds hung with tinkling balls of gold or silver. When the chieftain, or cacique, went abroad in state, men walked by his side carrying screens elegantly made of the bright plumage of birds. These were borne at the end of a long staff. The Spaniards found the fertile parts of the country everywhere crowded with towns, and very populous. But they did not find the gold[6] they coveted so much. They called the Indians a people ignorant of all the blessings of civilization, but to their honor be it also said, they were free from the vices by which it is accompanied and degraded. FOOTNOTES [1] PRIMITIVE MAN. All the articles named as being found in common use among the Florida Indians have been taken from the burial mounds which exist in the States of Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, etc. And all are more or less referred to as so many evidences of an extinct civilization. [2] NARVAEZ pursued the same policy, and met with like treatment. [3] FIRE-ARMS of that period were very clumsy weapons indeed. The arquebus was a short hand-gun, the caliver longer, and with the help of a slow-match could be fired from a rest. Only a certain proportion of the infantry were thus armed; the rest carried pikes.