st, overcome with the
summer heat, when five Indians suddenly appeared, peering timidly at
them from among the bushes. Some of the men went towards them with signs
of friendship, on which, taking heart, they drew near, and one of them,
who was evidently a chief, made a long speech, inviting the strangers
to their dwellings. The way was across the marsh, through which they
carried the lieutenant and two or three of the soldiers on their backs,
while the rest circled by a narrow path through the woods. When they
reached the lodges, a crowd of Indians came out "to receive our men
gallantly, and feast them after their manner." One of them brought a
large earthen vessel full of spring water, which was served out to
each in turn in a wooden cup. But what most astonished the French was
a venerable chief, who assured them that he was the father of five
successive generations, and that he had lived two hundred and fifty
years. Opposite sat a still more ancient veteran, the father of the
first, shrunken to a mere anatomy, and "seeming to be rather a dead
carkeis than a living body." "Also," pursues the history, "his age was
so great that the good man had lost his sight, and could not speak
one onely word but with exceeding great paine." In spite of his dismal
condition, the visitors were told that he might expect to live, in the
course of nature, thirty or forty years more. As the two patriarchs sat
face to face, half hidden with their streaming white hair, Ottigny and
his credulous soldiers looked from one to the other, lost in speechless
admiration.

One of these veterans made a parting present to his guests of two young
eagles, and Ottigny and his followers returned to report what they had
seen. Laudonniere was waiting for them on the side of the hill; and now,
he says, "I went right to the toppe thereof, where we found nothing
else but Cedars, Palme, and Baytrees of so sovereigne odour that Baulme
smelleth nothing like in comparison." From this high standpoint they
surveyed their Canaan. The unruffled river lay before them, with its
marshy islands overgrown with sedge and bulrushes; while on the farther
side the flat, green meadows spread mile on mile, veined with countless
creeks and belts of torpid water, and bounded leagues away by the
verge of the dim pine forest. On the right, the sea glistened along
the horizon; and on the left, the St. John's stretched westward between
verdant shores, a highway to their fancied Eldorad