for a dialectic substitution of / for r it may be connected
with such Catawba names as Congaree, Wateree, and Sugeree. It was probably a
village of minor importance.
They came next to the province of Xuala, or Xualla, as the Divas narrative more
often has it. In a French edition it appears as Chouala. Ranjel makes it three
days from Guaquili or five from Chalaque. Elvas also makes it live days from
Chalaque, while Biedma makes it eight days from Cofltachiqui, a total discrepancy
of four days from the last-named place. Biedma describes it as a rough mountain
country, thinly populated, but with a few Indian houses, and thinks that in these
mountains the great river of Fspiritu Santo (the Mississippi) had its birth. Ranjel
describes the town as situated in a plain in the vicinity ofrivers and in a country
with greater appearance of gold mines than any they had yet seen. The Portuguese
gentleman describes it as having very little corn, and says that they reached it from
Cofltachiqui over a hilly country. In his final chapter he states that the course
from Cofltachiqui to this place was from south to north, thus agreeing with Biedma.
According to Garcilaso (pp. 136-137) it was fifty leagues by the road along which the
Spaniards had come from Cofltachiqui to the first valley of the province of Xuala,
moosey] . dk SOTO'S ROUTE I ". r >
with but few mountains on the way, ami the town itself was situated close under a
mi mil tain ( " a la tali la de una sierra " beside a small bul rapid stream which formed
the