ds repaired to their
alarm posts, and Soto issuing out in his _escaupil_ or cotton armour,
mounted his horse and went to attack the Indians, being the first to
kill one of the assailants with his spear; as upon all occasions of
danger he gave a wonderful example of cool and intrepid courage. Some
sick Spaniards and several horses were burnt on this occasion; but
Captain Andres de Vasconcelos with four horsemen fell with such fury on
the enemy that he forced them to retire. Soto, being eager to slay an
Indian who particularly distinguished himself in this action, leaned
forwards so much that he and the saddle fell off; but being bravely
rescued by his men, he mounted again and returned to the fight. At
length after two hours hard fighting, the Indians were constrained to
fly, and were pursued as far as they could be seen by the light from the
burning houses, after which Soto sounded a retreat. In this fatal night,
the Spaniards lost forty men and fifty horses, twenty of them being
burnt. All the swine likewise perished in the fire, except a few that
broke out of an enclosed yard. During this engagement prodigious shots
of arrows were made by the Indians, one of which pierced through both
shoulder-blades of a horse, and came out four fingers breadth on the
opposite side.

[Footnote 168: This word seems to have almost the same sound with
Chicasaw, and Soto may on his present return into the interior have
crossed the river Yazous, which flows into the Missisippi in lat. 32 deg.
30' N. a short way above the Natches.--E.]

Soto now thought proper to remove the army to a town named _Chicacolla_,
about a league from that which had been burnt; and, having fortified
these new quarters, the Spaniards were obliged to make new saddles,
spears, targets and clothes, to supply the places of those which had
been burnt. The clothes were made of goats skins[169]. At this place the
Spaniards spent the rest of the winter, during which they suffered
extreme hardships for want of clothes, as the weather was excessively
cold. Being sensible that they had done much harm to the Spaniards in
the late night attack, the Indians returned again to make a similar
attempt; but their bow-strings being wetted by violent rain, they
withdrew, as was learnt from an Indian prisoner. They returned however
every night to alarm the Spaniards, of whom they always wounded some;
and though the cavalry scoured the country every day four leagues round,
they could