Perhaps the most amazing thing of all about Garcilaso de la Vega''s epic account of the De Soto expedition is the fact that, although it is easily the first great classic of American history, it had never before received a complete or otherwise adequate English translation in the 346 years which have elapsed since its publication in Spanish. Now the Inca''s thrilling narrative comes into its own in the English speaking world. Hernando de Soto''s expedition for the conquest of North America was the most ambitious ever to brave the perils of the New World. Garcilaso tells in remarkably rich detail of the conquistadors'' wanderings over half a continent, of the unbelievable vicissitudes which beset them, of the Indians whom they sought to win for King and Church and by whose hands most of them died, of De Soto''s death, and of the final pitiful failure of the expedition.