North Americans will probably always take a special interest in the adventures of the army of the Spanish commander De Soto, apart from the general charm of the subject, for it is to the chronicles of the same that they are indebted for the very earliest accounts of the Indian nations, who, in the sixteenth century inhabited the territory now comprising the southeastern quarter of the United States. The route pursued by the expedition during the years 1539 to 1543 has long been the subject of much discussion, but no satisfactory conclusions have been arrived at concerning the matter as a whole. Indeed there can scarcely be said to be a single point on the entire line of march which has been established beyond cavil. It is not now my intention to add to the mass of general comment, but merely to treat of a certain point of the route which personal enquiry and exploration in the field have enabled me to make up my mind about in all surety. This point is the location of the particular village of the Chickasaws in northeastern Mississippi, where De Soto went into camp on December 17, 1540, and of the smaller village to the northward whither he retreated about the first week in the ensuing March, after the fierce night attack of the natives which almost ruined the Spaniards. Before proceeding to give my own conclusions as to the true position of these villages, it is but proper to furnish an abstract of the descriptions given by the old writers, together with the opinions of the modern historians of Mississippi and of other people now inhabiting the northeastern counties of the State. The various authorities (excepting the popular views) will be quoted in the order in which they have appeared in printed form before the world. The anonymous “Gentleman of Elvas” one of the Portuguese volunteers, an eye-witness, comes first. His work, the “True Relation” etc., appeared in 1557. He says that Chicaza was a small town of twenty houses, and that the land was thickly inhabited, and that it was fertile, the greater part being under cultivation. Also that the Spaniards removed from that town where they wintered to the one where the cacique was accustomed to live, half a league off, because it was in the open country, on a prairie favorable for them.