Spreading their white wings, the ships sailed northward forty miles
during the night, and daylight found them standing off and on at the
mouth of the great River of May. By the aid of a chart, made by Admiral
Ribault two years before, they crossed its dangerous bar, and sailed up
its broad channel.
Short as was the time since they had been discovered off Seloy, swift
runners had already conveyed the great tidings of their coming to Micco,
the chief of this part of the country, and he and his people were thus
prepared to greet them upon their arrival. When Rene and his uncle,
followed by a company from the ships, landed, they were received with
shouts and extravagant gestures of joy by the friendly Indians, and
conducted by them to the top of a hill upon which Admiral Ribault had set
a pillar of stone engraved with the French coat of arms. They found it
twined with wreaths of flowers, and surrounded by baskets of maize,
quivers of arrows, and many other things that the kindly Indians took
this means of offering to their white friends.
Not far from this point Laudonniere selected the site of his fort, and
work upon it was immediately begun. He named it Fort Caroline, in honor
of King Charles IX of France, and about it he hoped to see in time a
flourishing colony of French Huguenots.
After all the stores and munitions had been landed from the ships, they
sailed for France, leaving the little company of white men the only ones
of their race in all that vast unknown wilderness.
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