Chapter III: "the Fountain of Youth"

Legend says that healing springs in a far-away land were known in Asia 2,000 years ago and that the tradition was later carried to Europe where it captured the imagination of certain gentlemen in Spain. L. J. Kalklosch gives a report from contemporary writers as follows:

"Before the Christian era, one Ferdinand Levendez, who was in the
Roman service for a time, made the acquaintance with a barbarian
prisoner by the name of Malikoroff, from whom, in the course of their
chats, he learned the story of a fountain, the virtue of whose waters
would restore old age to the vigor of youth and of which, if anyone
drank continually, he would never die. He (Malikoroff) had it from a
Tartar Chieftain under whom he once served.

"The chief told him the fountain was far off in the interior of a
great island almost inaccessible on account of the snow and ice to be
encountered in reaching its shore, but which, on being reached, it
spread out into a vast world, most of which had a pleasant climate.

"Levendez told many of his friends this wonderful story upon his
return to Spain and the tradition lived in the fancy of many an
aspiring and ambitious Castillian, even to the time of Christoval
Colon when it received a new impetus in the mind of Ponce de Leon when
he heard the same story told to him by the Mobilian Indians, on his
first visit of exploration in Florida. This Indian chief said that he
had the story from a Shawnee prisoner taken in battle, and that the
fountain was far to the northwest, and after crossing a great river.
Says the credulous Mobilian:

"'I have not seen the fountain myself; I only know that the Shawnee
told me so, and he said that his father had drunk of the water, and
that he was restored to perfect health and activity after being almost
double with pains in his bones for six moons, and he proposed to guide
me to the spot for his liberty, but the voice of the other chiefs was
against me, and he was put to death. The story may have been true: I
found all else true that he told me.'

"Ponce de Leon set out in search of this fountain but he did not even
reach as far as the Great River the Shawnee said must first be crossed
(its width four times as far as he could shoot with an arrow); being
wounded by the natives, he died in the summer of 1512, the remnant of
his forces returning to Cuba.

"Now, is there not corroborating evidence of these stories, though
reaching back 2,000 years, to convince us that the same spot and the
famous fountain lately discovered in Carroll County, Arkansas is the
identical fountain of the ancient tradition? Though it may not do all
the Tartan chief claimed for it, it does seem to do what the Shawnee
asserted it would do, and even more, restoring hair to bald heads, and
the gray hairs of age to the color they bore in youth."[6].