Soto and his diminishing army fought their way through what is now southeast United States. They crossed the "Rio Grande" (Mississippi) at Friar's Point, Miss., according to Brain, in June 1541. Exhausted, he made his way slowly south along the west bank, seeking the sea where he could build ships and escape the country. He wintered at the confluence of the Mississippi and Red Rivers.

In the spring, Soto sent Juan Anasco to scout the route ahead; but Anasco returned to report the way impassable. Soto fell into deep despondency. Finally "he took to his pallet, ill with fevers."

Feeling death approaching, Soto called in his officers. He thanked them for their loyalty and urged them to accept Luys Moscoso as leader.

The Gentleman of Elvas gives us the last word:

The next day, May 21, 1542, departed this life the magnanimous, the virtuous, the intrepid Captain, Don Hernando de Soto, Governor of Cuba and Adelantado of Florida. He was advanced by Fortune, in the way she is wont to lead others, that he might fall the greater depth.

He died in a land, and at a time, that could afford him little comfort in his illness; when the danger of being no more heard from

stared his companions in the face, each one himself having need of sympathy. This was the cause why they neither gave him their companionship nor visited him, as otherwise they would have done.

Luys de Moscoso determined to conceal what had happened from the Indians -- for Soto had given them to understand that the Christians were immortal. As soon as the death had taken place, Moscoco directed the body be put secretly into a house. There it remained three days. Then it was taken at night, by his order, to a gate of the town and buried within (so the tracks of horses would obliterate the grave).

The Indians, who had seen Soto ill, finding him no longer, suspected the reason. Passing by where he lay, they observed the ground loose; and, looking about, talked among themselves.

This coming to the knowledge of Moscoso, he ordered the corpse to be taken up at night. Among the shawls that enshrouded it was cast an abundance of sand. Then it was taken out in a canoe and committed to the middle of the stream.

The property of the Governor was sold at public outcry. It consisted of two male and three female slaves, three horses and 700 swine. Those having no property to pledge gave their bond. A hog brought in that way, trusted, 200 cruzados. From that time forward most of the people owned and raised hogs. They lived on pork.