l birds; with Harts, Hindes, Buckes, wilde Swine, and all other
kindes of wilde beastes, as we perceived well, both by their footing
there and... their crie and roaring in the night."* This is the country
of the liveoak and the magnolia, the gray, swinging moss and the yellow
jessamine, the chameleon and the mockingbird.

* Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America", vol.
V, p. 357.

The Savannah and Altamaha rivers and the wide and deep lands between
fell in that grant of Charles II's to the eight Lords Proprietors of
Carolina--Albemarle, Clarendon, and the rest. But this region remained
as yet unpeopled save by copper-hued folk. True, after the "American
Treaty" of 1670 between England and Spain, the English built a small
fort upon Cumberland Island, south of the Altamaha, and presently
another Fort George--to the northwest of the first, at the confluence of
the rivers Oconee and Oemulgee. There were, however, no true colonists
between the Savannah and the Altamaha.

In the year 1717--the year after Spotswood's Expedition--the Carolina
Proprietaries granted to one Sir Robert Mountgomery all the land
between the rivers Savannah and Altamaha, "with proper jurisdictions,
privileges, prerogatives, and franchises." The arrangement was feudal
enough. The new province was to be called the Margravate of Azilia.
Mountgomery, as Margrave, was to render to the Lords of Carolina an
annual quitrent and one-fourth part of all gold and silver found in
Azilia. He must govern in accordance with the laws of England, must
uphold the established religion of England, and provide by taxation for
the maintenance of the clergy. In three years' time the new Margrave
must colonize his Margravate, and if he failed to do so, all his rights
would disappear and Azilia would again dissolve into Carolina.

This was what happened. For whatever reason, Mountgomery could not
obtain his colonists. Azilia remained a paper land. The years went
by. The country, unsettled yet, lapsed into the Carolina from which so
tentatively it had been parted. Over its spaces the Indian still roved,
the tall forests still lifted their green crowns, and no axe was heard
nor any English voice.

In the decade that followed, the Lords Proprietors of Carolina ceased
to be Lords Proprietors. Their government had been, save at exceptional
moments, confused, oppressive, now absent-minded, and now mistaken and
arbitrary. They had meant very well, but thei