shoes, and other necessaries, besides medicines and sweetmeats.  After recovering from their fatigues, the men were ready to destroy their officers for not having settled in Florida, where there was such plenty of pearls and rich furs.  On their march to Mexico, which was made in several detachments to avoid mischief, the people everywhere ran to see them pass as so many monsters.  At Mexico they were clothed and kindly treated by the rich inhabitants; and as discord soon broke out again among them, for having abandoned so fine a country as Florida, the viceroy appeased them by promising to undertake the enterprise speedily in person along with them, when they should all have good pay, and that he would provide for them in the mean time.  When clothed, some of the adventurers returned into Spain, others remained in Mexico, and others went into Peru, while some entered into monasteries; and thus all these brave soldiers were dispersed.

Those persons who had been sent by the late general, Ferdinand de Soto, when he first advanced into the interior of Florida, to bring him supplies from the Havannah, faithfully obeyed his orders, as they sailed from thence four several years, and plied all along the coast to find him, but could never hear any tidings of him or any of his men, till, in the year 1543, arriving at Vera Cruz in October, they learnt that the remains of the expedition had been conducted to Mexico.—­This relation has been faithfully taken from that which was transmitted to the king, immediately after the close of that unfortunate enterprise.

END OF THE FIFTH VOLUME.