trail was
know n to the trailers a- " De Soto's trace " (W Iward, Reminiscences, p. 76). As
the Indian towns frequently shift their position within a limited range on account
of epidemics, freshets, or impoverishment of the soil, it is not neeessarj to assume
that they occupied exactly the same sites in 1540 as in 1800, 1 mt only that as a group
they were in the same general vicinity. Thus Kasi'ta itself was at one period above
the falls and at a later period some eight miles belowthem. Both Kasi'ta and Chiaha
were principal towns, with several branch villages.
The time given as occupied on the march from Canasagua to Chiaha would seem
too little for the actual distance, but as we have seen, the chroniclers do no1 agree
among themselves. We can easily believethat the Spaniards, buoyed up by the
certainty of finding f 1 and rest at their next halting place, made better progress
along the smooth rivertrail than while blundering helplessly through the mountains
at the direction of a most unwilling* guide. If Canasagua was any w here in the neigh-
borhood of Kenesaw, in Cobb county, the time mentioned in the Elvas or ( larcilaso
narrative would probably have been sufficient for reaching < Ihiaha at the falls. The
uninhabited country between the two towns was the neutral ground between the
two hostile tribes, the Cherokee and the ( 'reeks, and it is worth noting that Kene
saw mountain was made a point on the boundary line afterward established betwe< n
the two tribes through the mediation of the United States government.
200 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.anx.