" 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.
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