journeys is told on pp. 77-88, 101-143.]

[Illustration: The kind of cities found by Marcos and Coronado in the
Rio Grande valley.]

[Illustration: CORONADO'S EXPEDITION 1540]

%13. The Spaniards on the Mississippi.%--In 1537 De Soto was
appointed governor of Cuba, with instructions to conquer and hold all
the country discovered by Narvaez. On this mission he set out in May,
1539, and landed at Tampa Bay, on the west coast of our state of
Florida. He wandered over the swamps and marshes, the moss-grown
jungles, and the forests of the Gulf states, and spent the winter of
1541 near the Yazoo River. Crossing the Mississippi in the spring of
1542 at the Chickasaw Bluffs, he wandered about eastern Arkansas, till
he died of fever, and was buried in the Mississippi. His followers then
built rude boats, floated down the river to the Gulf, steered along the
coast of Texas, and in September, 1543, reached Tampico, in Mexico.

More than half a century had now gone by since the first voyage of
Columbus. Yet not a settlement, great or small, had been established by
Spain within our boundary. Between 1546 and 1561 missionaries twice
attempted to found missions and convert the Indians in Florida, and
twice were driven away. In 1582 others entered the valleys of the Gila
and the Rio Grande, took possession of the pueblos, established
missions, preached the Gospel to the Indians, and brought them under
the dominion of Spain. But when Santa Fé (sahn'-tah fa') was founded, in
1582, the only colony of Spain in the United States, besides the
missions in Arizona and New Mexico, was St. Augustine in Florida.