in two of those
antiquated craft whose high poops and tub-like proportions are preserved
in the old engravings of De Bry, they sailed from Havre on the eighteenth
of February, 1562. They crossed the Atlantic, and on the thirtieth of
April, in the latitude of twenty-nine and a half degrees, saw the long,
low line where the wilderness of waves met the wilderness of woods. It was
the coast of Florida. Soon they descried a jutting point, which they
called French Cape, perhaps one of the headlands of Matanzas Inlet. They
turned their prows northward, skirting the fringes of that waste of
verdure which rolled in shadowy undulation far to the unknown West.

On the next morning, the first of May, they found themselves off the mouth
of a great river. Riding at anchor on a sunny sea, they lowered their
boats, crossed the bar that obstructed the entrance, and floated on a
basin of deep and sheltered water, alive with leaping fish. Indians were
running along the beach and out upon the sand-bars, beckoning them to
land. They pushed their boats ashore and disembarked,--sailors, soldiers,
and eager young nobles. Corslet and morion, arquebuse and halberd flashed
in the sun that flickered through innumerable leaves, as, kneeling on the
ground, they gave thanks to God who had guided their voyage to an issue
full of promise. The Indians, seated gravely under the neighboring trees,
looked on in silent respect, thinking that they worshipped the sun. They
were in full paint, in honor of the occasion, and in a most friendly mood.
With their squaws and children, they presently drew near, and, strewing
the earth with laurel-boughs, sat down among the Frenchmen. The latter
were much pleased with them, and Ribaut gave the chief, whom he calls the
king, a robe of blue cloth, worked in yellow with the regal fleur-de-lis.

But Ribaut and his followers, just escaped from the dull prison of their
ships, were intent on admiring the wild scenes around them. Never had they
known a fairer May-Day. The quaint old narrative is exuberant with
delight. The quiet air, the warm sun, woods fresh with young verdure,
meadows bright with flowers; the palm, the cypress, the pine, the
magnolia; the grazing deer; herons, curlews, bitterns, woodcock, and
unknown water-fowl that waded in the ripple of the beach; cedars bearded
from crown to root with long gray moss; huge oaks smothering in the
serpent folds of enormous grape-vines: such were the objects that greeted
th