THE COUNTRY.


came, so much disaster,--even the pearls were
burned!
 De Soto still sighed, but his sighs were not like
 those which had melted into the music of waves
 and shining stars and soft winds, when the com-
 mander had looked back towards' the land which
 held his mistress. Now, three years in that ter-
 rible wilderness three years of alternate hope
 and disappointment, of steady loss and of con-
 tinual toil-had brought new thoughts into his
 brave, high heart. Looking over that yellow
 flood of the Great River,- for so they called the
 Mississippi,- so far from that young wife upon
 whom his mind dwelt with painful persistency, so
 very far from what her thought of him may have
been, he died. "The next day being the 21st
of May, 1542, departed out of this life the valor-
ous, virtuous, and valiant Captaine Don Fernando
De Soto, Governour of Cuba and Adelantado of
Florida; whom, says the chronicler, fortune
advanced as it useth to do to others, that he
might have the higher fall. He departed in
such a place and at such a time, and in his
sickness he had but little comfort."