although the offender made amends by marrying the girl , he never managed to regain the favour of his General , who nominated a wealthy Cuban landowner , Porcallo de Figueroa , in his place . it was an unfortunate appointment . Porcallo de Figueroa &apos;s main interest in the venture was to acquire slaves for his estates , and although he enriched the expedition with ample supplies and equipment , he unashamedly abandoned it the moment he realized how dearly the savages of Florida would sell their freedom . the rank and file of the expedition were drawn from many parts of the Emperor &apos;s wide domains , and even from lands beyond . a particularly large and well-armed contingent came from Portugal , and it is to one of these Portuguese adventurers , known as the gentleman of Elvas , that we owe the most circumstantial first-hand account of the expedition . amongst volunteers of other nationality we find mention of a French priest from Paris , Biscayan carpenters , a Genoa master-craftsman who could construct anything from a bridge to a brigantine , a Spaniard reared in England , and even an unnamed Englishman whose skill with the long-bow matched that of the Indians . in addition to the fighting-men , there were a few women , numerous native servants and negro slaves , more than two hundred horses , and a pack of ferocious mastiffs trained to track down , guard , or tear recalcitrant Indians to pieces . a herd of swine - possibly the ancestors of the razor-backs of the south-west today - were taken along to serve as a reserve of pork rations . de Soto opened operations by sending Captain Juan de A&amp;ntilde;asco to reconnoitre the coast of Florida for a harbour where the main expedition could disembark . the Comptroller returned without discovering anything suitable , and de Soto was obliged to make his landfall somewhere in the capacious , many-armed Bah&amp;iacute;a del Esp&amp;iacute;ritu Santo , now known as Tampa Bay , which had been the starting point for the ill-fated Narv&amp;aacute;ez expedition eleven years before . the Spaniards were in jubilant mood . Juan de A&amp;ntilde;asco had managed to kidnap a couple of savages from whose outlandish speech and vague signs they hopefully deduced the proximity of abundant gold . the soldiers boasted that their General had once helped to win the hoarded wealth of the Incas and would now surely lead them to still more fabulous treasure . they saw before them a virgin land , lush and sweet-scented in its spring freshness . the first to land returned with armfuls of rich grass for the exhausted horses and clusters of wild grapes for their comrades . Florida seemed a promised land indeed . it was not until some days later that the first Indians were encountered . amongst them was a man , all but indistinguishable from the natives , whom the Spaniards almost rode down . luckily for himself and his rescuers , he was spared just in time on account of the few disjointed words of Castillian which he called out . it was Juan Ortiz , the sailor who had fallen into the hands of the Indians eleven years before when serving with the Narv&amp;aacute;ez expedition , and who had survived by turning native . the adhesion of this man to de Soto &apos;s forces proved to be an event of major importance . now , for the first time , the Spaniards could count on a trustworthy interpreter familiar with the language and mentality of the Florida Indians . through Ortiz , de Soto was able to establish contact with Mucozo , the chieftain who had befriended him . after bestowing gifts of clothes , weapons , and a fine horse , de Soto came briskly to the point and asked whether Mucozo had knowledge of any land where gold and silver were to be found . the Indian replied simply that he knew nothing of such things , as he had never ventured further than a dozen leagues from his dwelling place ; but some thirty leagues off , he added , there lived a more powerful chief called Paracoxi in a land of rich maize-fields . de Soto forthwith despatched a captain to seek him out . but Paracoxi , though professing friendship , was distrustful of the Spaniards and went into hiding . his messengers told the Spaniards that they could find what they were seeking to the west , at a place called Cale , where summer reigned for most of the year , and men wore golden hats like helmets . a number of Paracoxi &apos;s men , in token of friendship and in hope of plunder , offered to accompany the Spaniards . to Cale , then , de Soto decided to march . a garrison of one hundred men was left behind as a base , and a small ship sent back to convey Porcallo de Figueroa , already disillusioned with the prospects of Florida as a slave reserve , to Cuba . the hardships of the campaign now began in grim earnest . the trail which the Spaniards followed led across a marsh , which the foot soldiers crossed by a makeshift bridge and the horses with the help of a hawser . food was short . water-cress and palmetto leaves were poor sustenance for men on the march , and even the maize they had found at Cale was a mean substitute for the gold they had looked for . since few Indians had been captured , the Spaniards had to attend to their own needs themselves , pounding the maize laboriously in mortars of hollowed log with the help of wooden pestles , and then sifting the flour through their shirts of mail , or munching the parched grains whole when they lacked the patience for this labour . but visions of ease and plenty beckoned them on ; in Apalache , the natives assured them , they would find everything they desired . before leaving Cale , the Spaniards suffered a loss which , though trivial in itself , throws light on the scale of values prevailing amongst the conquistadores and was deeply lamented throughout the army . Bruto , the most redoubtable and sagacious of their mastiffs , fell a victim to Indian arrows . the incident occurred when a force of hostile braves suddenly appeared on the further bank of a river which the Spaniards were preparing to cross . before his masters could hold him back , Bruto broke away from the page who held his leash and made straight for the enemy . the stream was broad and swift , and the animal &apos;s head presented an easy target for the Indian marksmen . he succeeded in reaching the far side only to fall dead as he struggled from the water , his head and shoulders pierced , so Garcilaso declares , by more than fifty arrows . thus did Bruto join the shades of Ponce de Le&amp;oacute;n &apos;s Becerillo and the latter &apos;s Leoncillo , who won for his master Balboa more than two thousand pesos of gold as his share of plunder , in the Valhalla of the Spaniards &apos; war-dogs . as the army toiled across the water-logged wilderness towards Apalache , the soldiers became aware that they were heading for regions through which , like the men of Narv&amp;aacute;ez , they might be unable to force a path . some began to murmur that they should turn back while there was yet time . but de Soto was inflexible , refusing to admit that what others found impossible would be impossible for him . meanwhile , there were more immediate dangers to face . the natives were professing friendship , but de Soto suspected treachery , especially when they began to assemble powerful forces on the pretext that they had come to honour the strangers by staging a ceremonial parade . the Spaniards resolved to strike first , and fell upon them in a stretch of open country bounded by two lakes . the Indians , taken by surprise could offer little resistance . more than three hundred of them were run down and lanced , a few managed to escape into the forests , while the rest sought safety in the lakes . grimly the Spaniards posted themselves around the water and tried to shoot down the fugitives with cross-bows and arquebus . cold and exhaustion at length forced the Indians to make for the shore under cover of darkness , their heads camouflaged with the leaves of aquatic plants . but the horsemen were waiting for them , and would charge into the water , forcing the Indians to give themselves up or turn back . Juan Ortiz called to them loudly in the Indian tongue , bidding them come forth if they would save their lives . one after another , the braves struggled from the water and gave themselves up , until only a dozen or so , the strongest and most stubborn , remained in the water . finally , de Soto ordered his native auxiliaries to plunge in after them . the last of the enemy were dragged out by the hair , more dead than alive , put into chains , and divided up amongst their captors with the rest . Garcilaso says that , as a result of this battle and the trapping of the Indians in the lakes , more than nine hundred fell captive to the Spaniards . but these warlike savages were not the stuff of which slaves could be made , and they soon turned on their captors . one day , when the Spaniards had just finished eating , the captive chieftain who had been seated beside de Soto rose to his feet with all conceivable savagery and ferocity and closed at once with the Adelantado . seizing him by the collar with his left hand , he gave him such a blow over the eyes , mouth and nose with his right fist that he knocked down the chair in which he was seated and stretched him out senseless on his back as if he had been a child . then , to finish off his victim , he let himself fall upon him , whilst at the same time giving such a tremendous roar that it could be heard a quarter of a league around . this roar was the signal for the other captives to set upon their masters throughout the camp . as weapons , they made use of the burning wood from the fire or other things found at hand ; many struck their masters in the face and burned them with pots of boiling food , others struck them with plates , crocks , jars , and pitchers , whilst others again used chairs , benches , and tables if they were to be had , and if not , anything else that came to hand . but the revolt of the fettered savages - as desperate a piece of tragic slapstick as can be found in the annals of the Conquista - could end only in one way . their bruised and resentful masters restored order and sent the captives off to execution . those who were not struck down at once were bound to stakes and then shot to death by the Indians whom the Spaniards had brought along with them from the friendly tribe of Paracoxi . it was now the end of October , and the army pushed on through swamps and lurking Indian ambushes towards Apalache . they were approaching a fertile country , with numerous settlements and plantations of maize and beans . here Narv&amp;aacute;ez had quartered his army and sought in vain for the rumoured hoards of gold . the coast was only some ten leagues away , but the maze of creeks and marsh land which fringed it thwarted the attempts of reconnaissance parties to break through to the open sea . at length they reached a lagoon on the shores of which were traces of an abandoned camp . heaps of charcoal ashes marked the spot where a forge had once been built , and the ground was strewn with the skulls of horses . the Spaniards had reached the Bah&amp;iacute;a de los Caballos , where Narv&amp;aacute;ez had built his brigantines and the cavalry had sacrificed their mounts . de Soto &apos;s men scanned the trunks of the trees for any messages which their predecessors might have left , but nothing was found . further down the shores of the lagoon , a search party came upon some disused canoes in which they put out to take soundings . the water was just deep enough , it seemed to them , to take larger vessels . with this report they returned to the General who decided that the time was now ripe to order the evacuation of the garrison which he had left behind at Tampa Bay where his expedition had first landed . the difficult task of returning overland to Tampa Bay , through regions where the Indians would be quick to take up arms against their old enemies , was entrusted to the Comptroller , Juan de A&amp;ntilde;asco , and a picked band of horsemen . 