houses. Finding his whole army lodged now in these houses, he himself took quarters in the habitations of the cacique, which were located on one side of the town and as royal dwellings had ad-vantages over all of the others.

In addition to the principal town, there were many more scattered throughout the vicinity at a half league, one, one-and-a-half, two, and at times three leagues apart. Some comprised 50 or 60 dwellings and others 100 more or less, not to mention another great number which were sprinkled about and not arranged as a town.

The site of the whole province was peaceful. The land was fertile for it produced a great abundance of food. In addition, there were many fish which the natives caught and keep prepared throughout the year for their subsistence.

Soto was disappointed when he reached Apalache. It was nowhere near as rich in precious metals as he had come to believe. Nevertheless, the area was fertile and well developed agriculturally. It was well suited for winter quarters.

Though Garcilaso carefully noted the names of minor villages along the route, he fails to name the settlement where Soto camped for nearly six months. Strangely Garcilaso refers to the place only as "the principal town of Apalache."

Nearly all scholars agree that Soto's winter camp -- called Iviahica by Ranjel -- was close to present Tallahassee. Eyewitness descriptions fit the terrain, and old Spanish mission records locate the greatest concentration of Apalache Indians there. The name Tallahassee translates to "Old Town."

Garcilaso recounts that shortly after settling down in the principal Apalache town, Soto sent out three scouting parties. The two that traveled northward returned in eight and nine days to report populous villages and tilled farms. To the south, however, Captain Anasco discovered "Very rough and difficult terrain almost impossible to traverse because of its woody undergrowth and swamps."

The contrast between the inland farms and coastal swamps of Apalache led Garcilaso to rationalize the uniformly dismal description by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, one of the few survivors of the Narvaez expedition:

Nunez describes the province of Apalache as "rough and craggy; covered with forests, swamps, rivers, and troublesome passages; and poorly populated as well as sterile."

Since all of these characteristics are contrary to what we are writing, and since what this gentleman records is trustworthy, we are led to believe that his expedition took place near the seacoast, and that he did not go so far inland as did Governor Hernando de Soto.

This supposition would account for his saying that he found the country so rough and so filled with woods and swamps; for Captain Juan de Anasco found it to be the same when he left the principal village of Apalache to go in search of the sea. The truth is that he was fortunate in not having been lost a great number of times, in view of the roughness of the terrain he encountered.

I am of the opinion that the principal village which de Vaca called Apalache, and to which he said Narvaez came, was not the same that de Soto discovered but some one of the many others of that province. It must have been nearer the sea, and being under the jurisdiction of the province of Apalache, could have been called by the same name. It should be noted, however, that a great part of Alvar Nunez' description of that land is what the Indians themselves gave him; and, as he himself says, those Castilians never saw it.

Taking an Indian who had offered himself as a guide, Anasco marched "six leagues a day for two days along a very excellent road, both wide and flat, crossing a couple of small and easily forded rivers." With this they came to to a village called Aute. at the head of a large bay.

They continued their quest for the sea on the same fine road. On the second day, however, their guide misled them into a dense, rough woods where they were lost for five days. At times they were so near the sea they could hear the surf.

In anger at the treachery, Anasco lanced the guide and turned his dogs on the Indian to finish him off. With this, an Indian captured at Aute hastily agreed to lead the party to the sea.

The Spaniards retraced their steps to Aute and traveled two leagues on the original path. Finally they reached a "very broad and spacious bay which they skirted until arriving at the place where Pamphilo de Narvaez had camped."

Garcilaso relates how Captain Anasco and his soldiers searched "in the hollows and under the bark of trees in an earnest attempt to ascertain if letters had been left which would disclose what their predecessors had seen and noted, it being a very usual custom for the discoverers of new lands to leave such announcements for those to come."