Sugar planter. [volume] (West Baton Rouge [i.e. Port Allen, West Baton Rouge Parish, La.]) 1856-1925, 1860-06-09
A Curious Renlinisence Of the
Olden Time.

or two with an old Spanish gentle
man in Louisiana, whose acquaint
ance l had recently formed, whe,
I became possessed Of the following
curious story of the past: Signo1
B. is a descendant Of an ole
Castilian titled family, and has ii
his possession among other records
Of the past, preserved in his family
a rare document about the Jour
neyings of DeSoto in this country
1t is itself, by confession, a copy
taken from the original manuscript
by some of the ancestors of Signo,
B. 1t is supposed that the orig
inal was prepared by some Of De
Soto's followers.
This is enough Of its history. |
was kindly permitted to examine
the MS, and copy a portion Of it.
[ should have been most happy,
had circumstances permitted, to
have taken a copy Of the whole
manuscript. But not being able to
80 that, l selected the account of
DeSoto's travels in the Northwest
ern part of Georgia and Tennessee,
and have made the following free
translation Of a portion which refers
to his encampment among the
mountains of this region. | will
give the translation first, and then
endeavor to locate the "encamp-
ment''. Of which it speaks, and en-
deavor to demonstrate the correct
ness of my conclusions by a refer
ence to the geography Of upper
Georgia, for | believe to Georgia is
due this Lonor, if it a be SO
called.
owe had been ~journeying for
some days among the rocks and
forests and mountains, endeavcring
to find an easy passage over them
to the north, but owing to the rough
character of the country we were
not able for a long time to effect
anything. The Governor deter
mined at last to push boldly in
among these mountains in a north
easterly direction, with the hope
that we might get over them before
the severity OF the winter should
render it impossible to do 80. The
weather was now getting very cold,
and every day we met d great
many Indians, suffering from it,
although they were more accus.
toned to it than ourselves. There
was also, we found, much to our
trouble, a great scarcity Of provis-
ions, SO that the Indians had now
ceased to bring us provendcr for
our horses, which they had done to
the South. So we helped ourselves
whenever we could find it.
We journeyed tor three days as
we'll as We could in a northeaster1y
direction, and hen came to a large
creek, where we found immense
herds Of deer, and killed some Of
them. The Governor thought that
could not do better than to fol-
low up this creek, in hopes of get
ting along better. We had been
following it up but a short time
when the weather checked orr fur !
Their progress by the heavy SHOWS !
which began to fall. So the Gov +:
ernor determined to halt and form {
encampment, 50 that we might j
rest our horses, that had suffered
very severely for several days, as t
well as to protect ourselves against {
the severity of the weather, until {
spring should afford US a good OPP t
p~ortunity for prosecuting our jour $
ney. The Governor selected for I;
our encampment a nearly level /,
spot Of land on the east bank of the
creek, among the mountains, con- {
tanning a few acres, and which we |
at once set to work to fortity, by
up a breastwork of dirt
and gravel; for the Indians were
not SO we'll disposed to us in this {
as they were further South.
After we had fortified our en-
campment, we made the Indians !:
build US Luts like their own inside
the breastworks, and gathered all
the food in there we could find
The Cacique of the Indians lives in
an Indian town some miles down
the creek from II encampment,
but not so far if we could have
crossed the mountains. We conld