From this youth he was informed that, about thirteen of fourteen days journey farther on, there was a province called Cofachiqui[155], which produced gold, silver and pearls.  This intelligence was very pleasing to the Spaniards, and made them wish anxiously for the season in which to march forwards.  During all the winter, which the Spaniards spent in Apalache, when any parties of them went out into the country, the Indians seldom failed to kill some of the men or horses with their arrows, yet always kept at a distance or among the woods, carefully avoiding to encounter them in the open fields.

[Footnote 155:  Perhaps the country of the Chicasaws.—­E.]

The season being at length come, in the spring of 1540, for taking the field, Soto set out on his march from Apalache towards the north, and on the third day encamped in a peninsula formed by a swamp, having wooden bridges of communication with the dry land.  This being an elevated situation, several towns could be seen from the encampment, which was still in the district belonging to Apalache.  The Spaniards rested here two days, during one of which seven men strolled out from the camp without orders, six of whom were slain by the Indians before they had got two hundred paces from the camp, and the seventh difficultly escaped with two wounds.  Leaving the province of Apalache, the Spaniards now entered that called Atalpaha, the first town they came to being abandoned by the natives.  Six of the principal people remained behind, who were brought before Soto, whom they boldly asked whether he was for peace or war with their nation.  Soto answered by means of his interpreter that he had no inclination for war, as his only intention was to pass through their country, yet desired that his people might be supplied with provisions.  To this they answered, if such were his intentions there was no occasion to have made them prisoners, and if he conducted himself in a friendly manner he might depend on better treatment than he had received at Apalache.  They accordingly dispatched some of the common people to desire the natives to return to their houses to serve the Spaniards, whom they conducted to a better town, where the cacique came to ratify a peace, which was punctually observed during three days that Soto remained there.

From that place they advanced for ten days to the northwards along the banks of a river, through a fertile country, in which all the inhabitants behaved in a friendly manner.  After this they entered the province of Achalaqui, which was poor, barren, and thinly inhabited, having very few young men, and the old people being mostly short-sighted and many of them quite blind.  Quickening the march through this bad country they came to the province of Cofachi, where, besides other presents, Soto gave the cacique some boars and sows for a breed, having brought above three hundred of these animals with him to Florida, where they increased very fast, as the Spaniards had