In fact, all around, religion was in a peculiarly blooming condition: the Council of Trent was being called; the Spanish Inquisition was roasting, and racking, and burning, with a free hand; elsewhere on the continent the nations were being persuaded to holy living by the sword and fire; in England, Henry VIII.
had suppressed the monasteries, burnt Fisher and another bishop or two, and was getting his English reformation and his harem effectively started.

When De Soto stood on the banks of the Mississippi, it was still two years before Luther's death; eleven years before the burning of Servetus; thirty years before the St.Bartholomew slaughter; Rabelais was not yet published; 'Don Quixote' was not yet written; Shakespeare was not yet born; a hundred long years must still elapse before Englishmen would hear the name of Oliver Cromwell.
Unquestionably the discovery of the Mississippi is a datable fact which considerably mellows and modifies the shiny newness of our country, and gives her a most respectable outside-aspect of rustiness and antiquity.
De Soto merely glimpsed the river, then died and was buried in it by his priests and soldiers.

One would expect the priests and the soldiers to multiply the river's dimensions by ten--the Spanish custom of the day--and thus move other adventurers to go at once and explore it.

On the contrary, their narratives when they reached home, did not excite that amount of curiosity.

The Mississippi was left unvisited by whites during a term of years which seems incredible in our energetic days.