at
is applied unto women when they weep, _lachrymoe crocodili_.'

From the West Indies Hawkins made for Florida, which was then an object
of exceptional desire among adventurous Englishmen. De Soto, one of
Pizarro's lieutenants, had annexed it to Spain and, in 1539, had started
off inland to discover the supposed Peru of North America. Three years
later he had died while descending the valley of the Mississippi. Six
years later again, the first Spanish missionary in Florida 'taking upon
him to persuade the people to subjection, was by them taken, and his
skin cruelly pulled over his ears, and his flesh eaten.' Hawkins's men
had fair warning on the way; for 'they, being ashore, found a dead man,
dried in a manner whole, with other heads and bodies of men,'
apparently smoked like hams. 'But to return to our purpose,' adds the
indefatigable Sparke, 'the captain in the ship's pinnace sailed along
the shore and went into every creek, speaking with divers of the
_Floridians_, because he would understand where the Frenchmen
inhabited.' Finally he found them 'in the river of _May_ [now St. John's
River] and standing in 30 degrees and better.' There was 'great store of
maize and mill, and grapes of great bigness. Also deer great plenty,
which came upon the sands before them.'

So here were the three rivals overlapping again--the annexing Spaniards,
the would-be colonizing French, and the persistently trading English.
There were, however, no Spaniards about at that time. This was the
second Huguenot colony in Florida. Rene de Laudonniere had founded it in
1564. The first one, founded two years earlier by Jean Ribaut, had
failed and Ribaut's men had deserted the place. They had started for
home in 1563, had suffered terrible hardships, had been picked up by an
English vessel, and taken, some to France and some to England, where the
court was all agog about the wealth of Florida. People said there were
mines so bright with jewels that they had to be approached at night
lest the flashing light should strike men blind. Florida became
proverbial; and Elizabethan wits made endless fun of it. _Stolida_, or
the land of fools, and _Sordida_, or the land of muck-worms, were some
of their _jeux d'esprit_. Everyone was 'bound for Florida,' whether he
meant to go there or not, despite Spanish spheres of influence, the
native cannibals, and pirates by the way.

Hawkins, on the contrary, did not profess to be bound for Florida.
Nevertheless