Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70

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[Footnote 11: The advocates of the development-theory allude to the
metamorphosis of animals and plants as supporting their view of a change
of one species into another. They compare the passage of a common leaf
into the calyx or crown-leaves in plants, or that of a larva into a
perfect insect, to the passage of one species into another. The only
objection to this argument seems to be, that, whereas Nature daily
presents us myriads of examples of the one set of phenomena, showing it
to be a norm, not a single instance of the other has ever been known to
occur either in the animal or in the vegetable kingdom.]

In my next article I shall show the relation between the Cretaceous and
Tertiary epochs, and see whether there is any reason to believe that the
gigantic Mammalia of more modern times were derived from the Reptiles of
the Secondary age.

* * * * *

THE WHITE-THROATED SPARROW.

Hark! 't is our Northern Nightingale that sings
In far-off, leafy cloisters, dark and cool,
Flinging his flute-notes bounding from the skies!

Thou wild musician of the mountain-streams,
Most tuneful minstrel of the forest-choirs,
Bird of all grace and harmony of soul,
Unseen, we hail thee for thy blissful voice!

Up in yon tremulous mist where morning wakes
Illimitable shadows from their dark abodes,
Or in this woodland glade tumultuous grown
With all the murmurous language of the trees,
No blither presence fills the vocal space.
The wandering rivulets dancing through the grass,
The gambols, low or loud, of insect-life,
The cheerful call of cattle in the vales,
Sweet natural sounds of the contented hours,--
All seem less jubilant when thy song begins.

Deep in the shade we lie and listen long;
For human converse well may pause, and man
Learn from such notes fresh hints of praise,
That upward swelling from thy grateful tribe
Circles the hills with melodies of joy.

* * * * *

THE FLEUR-DE-LIS IN FLORIDA.

[In the July number of this magazine is a sketch of the attempt
of the Huguenots, under the auspices of Coligny, to found a
colony at Port Royal. Two years later, an attempt was made to
establish a Protestant community on the banks of the River St.
John's, in Florida. The following paper embodies the substance
of the letters and narratives of the actors in this striking
episode of American history.]

CHAPTER I.

On the 25th of June, 1564, a French squadron anchored a second time off
the mouth of the River of May. There were three vessels, the smallest of
sixty tons, the largest of one hundred and twenty, all crowded with men.
Rene de Laudonniere held command. He was of a noble race of Poitou,
attached to the House of Chatillon, of which Coligny was the head;
pious, we are told, and an excellent marine officer. An engraving,
purporting to be his likeness, shows us a slender figure, leaning
against the mast, booted to the thigh, with slouched hat and plume,
slashed doublet, and short cloak. His thin oval face, with curled
moustache and close-trimmed beard, wears a thoughtful and somewhat
pensive look, as if already shadowed by the destiny that awaited him.

The intervening year since Ribaut's voyage had been a dark and deadly
year for France. From the peaceful solitude of the River of May, that
voyager returned to a land reeking with slaughter. But the carnival of
bigotry and hate had found a respite. The Peace of Amboise had been
signed. The fierce monk choked down his venom; the soldier sheathed his
sword; the assassin, his dagger; rival chiefs grasped hands, and masked
their rancor under hollow smiles. The king and the queen-mother,
helpless amid the storm of factions which threatened their destruction,
smiled now on Conde, now on Guise,--gave ear to the Cardinal of
Lorraine, or listened in secret to the emissaries of Theodore Beza.
Coligny was again strong at Court. He used his opportunity, and
solicited with success the means of renewing his enterprise of
colonization. With pains and zeal, men were mustered for the work. In
name, at least, they were all Huguenots; yet again, as before, the
staple of the projected colony was unsound: soldiers, paid out of the
royal treasury, hired artisans and tradesmen, joined with a swarm of
volunteers from the young Huguenot noblesse, whose restless swords had
rusted in their scabbards since the peace. The foundation-stone was left
out. There were no tillers of the soil. Such, indeed, were rare among
the Huguenots; for the dull peasants who guided the plough clung with
blind tenacity to the ancient faith. Adventurous gentlemen, reckless
soldiers, discontented tradesmen, all keen for novelty and heated with
dreams of wealth,--these were they who would build for their country and
their religion an empire beyond the sea.

With a few officers and twelve soldiers, Laudonniere landed where Ribaut
had landed before him; and as their boat neared the shore, they saw an
Indian chief who ran to meet them, whooping and clamoring welcome from
afar. It was Satouriona, the savage potentate who ruled some thirty
villages around the lower St. John's and northward along the coast. With
him came two stalwart sons, and behind trooped a host of tribesmen
arrayed in smoke-tanned deerskins stained with wild devices in gaudy
colors. They crowded around the voyagers with beaming visages and yelps
of gratulation. The royal Satouriona could not contain the exuberance of
his joy, since in the person of the French commander he recognized the
brother of the Sun, descended from the skies to aid him against his
great rival, Outina.

Hard by stood the column of stone, graven with the fleur-de-lis,
planted here on the former voyage. The Indians had crowned the mystic
emblem with evergreens, and placed offerings of maize on the ground
before it; for with an affectionate and reverent wonder they had ever
remembered the steel-clad strangers whom, two summers before, John
Ribaut had led to their shores.

Five miles up the St. John's, or River of May, there stands, on the
southern bank, a hill some forty feet high, boldly thrusting itself into
the broad and lazy waters. It is now called St. John's Bluff. Thither
the Frenchmen repaired, pushed through the dense semi-tropical forest,
and climbed the steep acclivity. Thence they surveyed their Canaan.
Beneath them moved the unruffled river, gliding around the reed-grown
shores of marshy islands, the haunt of alligators, and betwixt the
bordering expanse of wide, wet meadows, studded with island-like clumps
of pine and palmetto, and bounded by the sunny verge of distant forests.
Far on their right, seen by glimpses between the shaggy cedar-boughs,
the glistening sea lay stretched along the horizon. Before, in hazy
distance, the softened green of the woodlands was veined with the mazes
of the countless interlacing streams that drain the watery region behind
St. Mary's and Fernandina. To the left, the St. John's flowed gleaming
betwixt verdant shores beyond whose portals lay the El Dorado of their
dreams. "Briefly," writes Laudonniere, "the place is so pleasant that
those which are melancholicke would be inforced to change their humour."

A fresh surprise awaited them. The allotted span of mortal life was
quadrupled in that benign climate. Laudonniere's lieutenant, Ottigny,
ranging the neighboring forest with a party of soldiers, met a troop of
Indians who invited him to their dwellings. Mounted on the back of a
stout savage, who plunged with him through the deep marshes, and guided
him by devious pathways through the tangled thickets, he arrived at
length, and beheld a wondrous spectacle. In the lodge sat a venerable
chief, who assured him 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." Despite his dismal condition, the
visitor was 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 wonder and admiration.

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 content himself and his men, Laudonniere
weighed anchor, and sailed for a time along the neighboring coasts.
Returning, confirmed in his first impression, he set forth 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 and sultry 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 broad
meadow, a running brook, a lofty 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.

At daybreak they were roused by sound of trumpet. Men and officers
joined their voices in a psalm, then betook themselves to their task.
Their task was the building of a fort, and this was the chosen spot. It
was a tract of dry ground on the brink of the river, immediately above
St. John's Bluff. On the right was the bluff; on the left, a marsh; in
front, the river; behind, the forest.

Boats came up the stream with laborers, tents, provision, cannon, and
tools. The engineers marked out the work in the form of a triangle; and,
from the noble volunteer to the meanest artisan, all lent a hand to
complete it. On the river side the defences were a palisade of timber.
On the two other sides were a ditch, and a rampart of fascines, earth,
and sods. At each angle was a bastion, in one of which was the magazine.
Within was a spacious parade, and around it various buildings for
lodging and storage. A large house with covered galleries was built on
the side towards the river for Laudonniere and his officers. In honor of
Charles IX the fort was named Fort Caroline.

Meanwhile, Satouriona, "lord of all that country," as the narratives
style him, was seized with misgivings, learning these mighty
preparations. The work was but begun, and all was din and confusion
around the incipient fort, when the startled Frenchmen saw the
neighboring height of St. John's swarming with naked warriors. The
prudent Laudonniere set his men in array, and for a season pick and
spade were dropped for arquebuse and pike. The savage potentate
descended to the camp. The artist Le Moyne, who saw him, drew his
likeness from memory,--a tall, athletic figure, tattooed in token of his
rank, plumed with feathers, hung with strings of beads, and girdled with
tinkling pieces of metal which hung from the belt, his only garment. He
came in regal state, a crowd of warriors around him, and, in advance, a
troop of young Indians armed with spears. Twenty musicians followed,
blowing a hideous discord through pipes of reeds. Arrived, he seated
himself on the ground "like a monkey," as Le Moyne has it in the grave
Latin of his "Brevis Narratio." A council followed, in which broken
words were aided by signs and pantomime. A treaty of alliance was made,
and Laudonniere had the folly to promise the chief that he would lend
him aid against his enemies. Satouriona, well pleased, ordered his
Indians to aid the French at their work. They obeyed with alacrity, and
in two days the buildings of the fort were all thatched after the native
fashion with leaves of the palmetto.

A word touching these savages. In the peninsula of Florida were several
distinct Indian confederacies, with three of which the French were
brought into contact. The first was that of Satouriona. The next was the
potent confederacy of the Thimagoa, under a chief called Outina, whose
forty villages were scattered among the lakes and forests around the
upper waters of this remarkable river. The third was that of "King
Potanou," whose domain lay among the pine-barrens, cypress-swamps, and
fertile hummocks, westward and northwestward of the St. John's. The
three communities were at deadly enmity. Their social state was more
advanced than that of the wandering hunter-tribes of the North. They
were an agricultural people. Around all their villages were fields of
maize, beans, and pumpkins. The harvest, due chiefly to the labor of the
women, was gathered into a public granary, and on this they lived during
three-fourths of the year, dispersing in winter to hunt among the
forests.

Their villages were clusters of huts thatched with palmetto. In the
midst was the dwelling of the chief, much larger than the rest, and
sometimes raised on an artificial mound. They were inclosed with
palisades, and, strange to say, some of them were approached by wide
avenues, artificially graded, and several hundred yards in length.
Remains of them may still be seen, as may also the mounds in which the
Floridians, like the Hurons and various other tribes, collected at
stated intervals the bones of their dead.

The most prominent feature of their religion was sun-worship, and, like
other wild American tribes, they abounded in "medicine-men," who
combined the functions of priest, physician, and necromancer.

Social distinctions were sharply defined among them. Their chiefs, whose
office was hereditary, sometimes exercised a power almost absolute. Each
village had its chief, subordinate to the grand chief of the nation. In
the language of the French narratives, they were all kings or lords,
vassals of the great monarch Satouriona, Outina, or Potanou. All these
tribes are now extinct, and it is difficult to ascertain with precision
their tribal affinities. There can be no doubt that they were the
authors of the mounds and other remains at present found in various
parts of Florida.

Their fort nearly finished, and their league made with Satouriona, the
gold-hunting Huguenots were eager to spy out the secrets of the
interior. To this end the lieutenant, Ottigny, went up the river in a
sail-boat. With him were a few soldiers and two Indians, the latter
going forth, says Laudonniere, as if bound to a wedding, keen for a
fight with the hated Thimagoa, and exulting in the havoc to be wrought
among them by the magic weapons of their white allies. They were doomed
to grievous disappointment.

The Sieur d'Ottigny spread his sail, and calmly glided up the dark
waters of the St. John's. A scene fraught with strange interest to the
naturalist and the lover of Nature. Here, two centuries later, the
Bartrams, father and son, guided their skiff and kindled their nightly
bivouac-fire; and here, too, roamed Audubon, with his sketch-book and
his gun. Each alike has left the record of his wanderings, fresh as the
woods and waters that inspired it. Slight, then, was the change since
Ottigny, first of white men, steered his bark along the still breast of
the virgin river. Before him, like a lake, the redundant waters spread
far and wide; and along the low shores, or jutting points, or the
waveless margin of deep and sheltered coves, towered wild, majestic
forms of vegetable beauty. Here rose the magnolia, high above
surrounding woods; but the gorgeous bloom had fallen, that a few weeks
earlier studded the verdant dome with silver. From the edge of the
bordering swamp the cypress reared its vast buttressed column and leafy
canopy. From the rugged arms of oak and pine streamed the gray drapery
of the long Spanish moss, swayed mournfully in the faintest breeze. Here
were the tropical plumage of the palm, the dark green masses of the
live-oak, the glistening verdure of wild orange-groves; and from out the
shadowy thickets hung the wreaths of the jessamine and the scarlet
trumpets of the bignonia.

Nor less did the fruitful river teem with varied forms of animal life.
From the caverns of leafy shade came the gleam and flicker of
many-colored plumage. The cormorant, the pelican, the heron, floated on
the water, or stalked along its pebbly brink. Among the sedges, the
alligator, foul from his native mud, outstretched his hideous length,
or, sluggish and sullen, drifted past the boat, his grim head level with
the surface, and each scale, each folding of his horny hide, distinctly
visible, as, with the slow movement of distended paws, he balanced
himself in the water. When, at sunset, they drew up their boat on the
strand, and built their camp-fire under the arches of the woods, the
shores resounded with the roaring of these colossal lizards; all night
the forest rang with the whooping of the owls; and in the morning the
sultry mists that wrapped the river were vocal, far and near, with the
clamor of wild turkeys.

Among such scenes, for twenty leagues, the adventurous sail moved on.
Far to the right, beyond the silent waste of pines, lay the realm of
the mighty Potanou. The Thimagoa towns were still above them on the
river, when they saw three canoes of this people at no great distance in
front. Forthwith the two Indians in the boat were fevered with
excitement. With glittering eyes they snatched pike and sword, and
prepared for fight; but the sage Ottigny, bearing slowly down on the
strangers, gave them time to run their craft ashore and escape to the
woods. Then, landing, he approached the canoes, placed in them a few
trinkets, and withdrew to a distance. The fugitives took heart, and,
step by step, returned. An amicable intercourse was opened, with
assurances of friendship on the part of the French, a procedure viewed
by Satouriona's Indians with unspeakable disgust and ire.

The ice thus broken, Ottigny returned to Fort Caroline; and a fortnight
later, an officer named Vasseur sailed up the river to pursue the
adventure: for the French, thinking that the nation of the Thimagoa lay
betwixt them and the gold-mines, would by no means quarrel with them,
and Laudonniere repented him already of his rash pledge to Satouriona.

As Vasseur moved on, two Indians hailed him from the shore, inviting him
to their dwellings. He accepted their guidance, and presently saw before
him the cornfields and palisades of an Indian town. Led through the
wondering crowd to the lodge of the chief, Mollua, Vasseur and his
followers were seated in the place of honor and plentifully regaled with
fish and bread. The repast over, Mollua began his discourse. He told
them that he was one of the forty vassal chiefs of the great Outina,
lord of all the Thimagoa, whose warriors wore armor of gold and silver
plate. He told them, too, of Potanou, his enemy, a mighty and redoubted
prince; and of the two kings of the distant Appalachian Mountains, rich
beyond utterance in gems and gold. While thus, with earnest pantomime
and broken words, the chief discoursed with his guests, Vasseur, intent
and eager, strove to follow his meaning; and no sooner did he hear of
these Appalachian treasures than he promised to join Outina in war
against the two potentates of the mountains. Hereupon the sagacious
Mollua, well pleased, promised that each of Outina's vassal chiefs
should requite their French allies with a heap of gold and silver two
feet high. Thus, while Laudonniere stood pledged to Satouriona, Vasseur
made alliance with his mortal enemy.

Returning, he was met, near the fort, by one of Satouriona's chiefs, who
questioned him touching his dealings with the Thimagoa. Vasseur replied,
that he had set upon and routed them with incredible slaughter. But as
the chief, seeming as yet unsatisfied, continued his inquiries, the
sergeant, Francis la Caille, drew his sword, and, like Falstaff before
him, re-enacted his deeds of valor, pursuing and thrusting at the
imaginary Thimagoa as they fled before his fury. Whereat the chief, at
length convinced, led the party to his lodge, and entertained them with
a certain savory decoction with which the Indians were wont to regale
those whom they delighted to honor.

Elate at the promise of a French alliance, Satouriona had summoned his
vassal chiefs to war. From the St. Mary's and the Satilla and the
distant Altamaha, from every quarter of his woodland realm, they had
mustered at his call. By the margin of the St. John's, the forest was
alive with their bivouacs. Ten chiefs were here, and some five hundred
men. And now, when all was ready, Satouriona reminded Laudonniere of his
promise, and claimed its fulfilment; but the latter gave evasive answers
and a virtual refusal. Stifling his rage, the chief prepared to go
without him.

Near the bank of the river, a fire was kindled, and two large vessels of
water placed beside it. Here Satouriona took his stand. His chiefs
crouched on the grass around him, and the savage visages of his five
hundred warriors filled the outer circle, their long hair garnished with
feathers, or covered with the heads and skins of wolves, panthers,
bears, or eagles. Satouriona, looking towards the country of his enemy,
distorted his features to a wild expression of rage and hate; then
muttered to himself; then howled an invocation to his god, the sun; then
besprinkled the assembly with water from one of the vessels, and,
turning the other upon the fire, suddenly quenched it. "So," he cried,
"may the blood of our enemies be poured out, and their lives
extinguished!" and the concourse gave forth an explosion of responsive
yells, till the shores resounded with the wolfish din.

The rites over, they set forth, and in a few days returned exulting with
thirteen prisoners and a number of scalps. The latter were hung on a
pole before the royal lodge, and when night came, it brought with it a
pandemonium of dancing and whooping, drumming and feasting.

A notable scheme entered the brain of Laudonniere. Resolved, cost what
it might, to make a friend of Outina, he conceived it a stroke of policy
to send back to him two of the prisoners. In the morning he sent a
soldier to Satouriona to demand them. The astonished chief gave a flat
refusal, adding that he owed the French no favors, for they had
shamefully broken faith with him. On this, Laudonniere, at the head of
twenty soldiers, proceeded to the Indian town, placed a guard at the
opening of the great lodge, entered with his arquebusiers, and seated
himself without ceremony in the highest place. Here, to show his
displeasure, he remained in silence for a half-hour. At length he spoke,
renewing his demand. For some moments Satouriona made no reply, then
coldly observed that the sight of so many armed men had frightened the
prisoners away. Laudonniere grew peremptory, when the chiefs son,
Athore, went out, and presently returned with the two Indians, whom the
French led back to Fort Caroline.

Satouriona dissembled, professed good-will, and sent presents to the
fort; but the outrage rankled in his savage breast, and he never forgave
it.

Captain Vasseur, with Arlac, the ensign, a sergeant, and ten soldiers,
embarked to bear the ill-gotten gift to Outina. Arrived, they were
showered with thanks by that grateful potentate, who, hastening to avail
himself of his new alliance, invited them to join in a raid against his
neighbor, Potanou. To this end, Arlac and five soldiers remained, while
Vasseur with the rest descended to Fort Caroline.

The warriors were mustered, the dances were danced, and the songs were
sung. Then the wild cohort took up its march. The wilderness through
which they passed holds its distinctive features to this day,--the shady
desert of the pine-barrens, where many a wanderer has miserably died,
with haggard eye seeking in vain for clue or guidance in the pitiless,
inexorable monotony. Yet the waste has its oases, the "hummocks," where
the live-oaks are hung with long festoons of grape-vines,--where the air
is sweet with woodland odors, and vocal with the song of birds. Then the
deep cypress-swamp, where dark trunks rise like the columns of some vast
sepulchre. Above, the impervious canopy of leaves; beneath, a black and
root-encumbered slough. Perpetual moisture trickles down the clammy
bark, while trunk and limb, distorted with strange shapes of vegetable
disease, wear in the gloom a semblance grotesque and startling. Lifeless
forms lean propped in wild disorder against the living, and from every
rugged stem and lank limb outstretched hangs the dark drapery of the
Spanish moss. The swamp is veiled in mourning. No breath, no voice. A
deathly stillness, till the plunge of the alligator, lashing the waters
of the black lagoon, resounds with hollow echo through the tomb-like
solitude.

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