o. "Briefly,"
writes Laudonniere, "the place is so pleasant that those which are
melancholicke would be inforced to change their humour."

On their way back to the ships they stopped for another parley with the
chief Satouriona, and Laudonniere eagerly asked where he had got the
wedge of silver that he gave him in the morning. The chief told him by
signs, that he had taken it in war from a people called Thimagoas, who
lived higher up the River, and who were his mortal enemies; on which
the French captain had the folly to promise that he would join in an
expedition against them. Satouriona was delighted, and declared that, if
he kept his word, he should have gold and silver to his heart's content.

Man and nature alike seemed to mark the borders of the River of May
as the site of the new colony; for here, around the Indian towns, the
harvests of maize, beans, and pumpkins promised abundant food, while the
river opened a ready way to the mines of gold and silver and the stores
of barbaric wealth which glittered before the dreaming vision of the
colonists. Yet, the better to satisfy himself and his men, Laudonniere
weighed anchor, and sailed for a time along the neighboring coasts.
Returning, confirmed in his first impression, he set out with a party of
officers and soldiers to explore the borders of the chosen stream.
The day was hot. The sun beat fiercely on the woollen caps and heavy
doublets of the men, till at length they gained the shade of one
of those deep forests of pine where the dead, hot air is thick with
resinous odors, and the earth, carpeted with fallen leaves, gives no
sound beneath the foot. Yet, in the stillness, deer leaped up on all
sides as they moved along. Then they emerged into sunlight. A meadow was
before them, a running brook, and a wall of encircling forests. The men
called it the Vale of Laudonniere. The afternoon was spent, and the
sun was near its setting, when they reached the bank of the river. They
strewed the ground with boughs and leaves, and, stretched on that sylvan
couch, slept the sleep of travel-worn and weary men.

They were roused at daybreak by sound of trumpet, and after singing a
psalm they set themselves to their task. It was the building of a fort,
and the spot they chose was a furlong or more above St. John's Bluff,
where close to the water was a wide, flat knoll, raised a few feet above
the marsh and the river. [13] Boats came up the stream with laborers,
tents, provision