De Soto and il1oscoso Beyond tlee Jlfississippi, 1537-1543
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again crossed it in a northwesterly direction, and penetrated the north- ern half of Mississippi.' It was at Mavilla, near the junction of the Alabama and Tombigbee, that in October, 1540, in the severest battle with the natives, De Soto and his men lost all the clothes which they had brought with them, the pearls which they had intended to send to Cuba, the bandages and appliances of their only surgeon, and, worst of all, the chalices, the altar decorations, the priests' robes, the wine, and the wheat flour reserved for the service of the Mass and all their powder.7 The poor soldiers felt sadly the loss of their clothes as well as of the wine and pure wheat flour for the Sacrifice. "Thereafter, by order of the priests," says Garcilaso, "an altar was set up and arranged on Sundays and feast days, and a priest, dressed in garments made of buckskin would recite the Confiteor and Introit, the Collect, the Epistle and the Gospel, and the other parts of the Mass to the end, without the Consecration. This the Spaniards called a dry Mass." 8 Several months later, on May 21, 1541, according to Rangel, De Soto and his wearied companions reached the Mississippi River, in the province of Quizquiz, where it was called Chucagua. 9 The exact spot has not been definitely determined but there is a general agreement that it was below the mouth of the St. Francis and just a little above the point where the White River enters the Mississippi. 10 Here they stayed for almost a month. Lowery has given a graphic description, taken mainly from Garcilaso, of the camp of these dauntless conquerors on the banks of the mighty river after two years of wandering. "In the background, under the still leafless trees, whose buds were but scarcely beginning to swell, the horses were picketed or hobbled, weary and jaded with the hard march through the Yazoo bottoms, their rough winter coats singed and bared in spots from the still recent Chickasaw fire. In their midst the swine, grimy and thin, rooted under the dead leaves for acorns and succulent and tender shoots. Near the camp, set somewhat back from the river's bank, a band of lazy, barefooted soldiers, clothed in wretched doublets and breeches of buck- skin, some with their steel caps tossed aside, showing the black Spanish locks sunburnt to a Gothic red, lay gambling away their slaves at cards 6 Lowery, S j>a11islz S ettleme11ts, 2 5 I . 7 Gentleman of Elvas (Bourne, ed.), I, 95-98. 8 Garcilaso, La Florida del Inca, I 59. 9 Buckingham Smith, Col. de Doc. Flo., '."P· 57-58; Elvas, op. cit., I 12; Gar- cilaso, La Florida, p. I 76. 10 Lowery, op. cit., 237. I am indebted for this location to J. R. Fordyce of Arkansas.
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