the Savannah. It is described as the poorest country for corn that
they had yet seen, the inhabitants subsisting on wild root- and
herbs and on game which they killed with bows and arrows. They
were naked, lean, and unwarlike. The country abounded in wild
turkeys ("gallinas"), which the people gave very freely to the
strangers, one town presenting them with seven hundred. A chief
also gave De Soto two deerskins a- a great present.' Garcilaso, writ-
ing on the authority of an old soldier nearly fifty years afterward,
says that the "Chalaques" deserted their towns on the approach of
the white men and lied to the mountains, leaving behind only old men
and women and some who were nearly blind. 3 Although it was too
early for the new crop, the poverty of the people may have been
morebred
for eating purposes and did not bark. 1 They were also supplied with
men to help carry the baggage. The name Guaquili has a Cherokee
sound and may be connected with wa'guli', "whipj rwill," uicd'gili,
" f oam," or gill, "dog." 1/
Traveling still toward the north, they arrived a day or two later in
the province of Xuala, in which we recognize the territory of the
Suwali, Sara, or Cheraw Indians, in the piedmont region about the
head of Broad river in North Carolina. Garcilaso, who did not sec it.
represents it as a rich country, while the Elvas narrative and Biedma
agree that it was a rough, broken country, thinly inhabited and poor
in provision. According to Garcilaso, it was under the rule of the
queen of Cofitachiqui, although a distinct province in itself. 2 The
principal town