The Lily and the Totem; or, The Huguenots in Florida

by William Gilmore Simms

From this river, still pursuing a northwardly course, Ribault came to another which he explored and named the Seine, (now the St. Mary’s,) because it appeared to resemble the river of that name in France.[4] We pass over the minor details in this progress—how he communed with the natives—who, everywhere seemed to have entertained our Huguenots with equal grace and gentleness, and who are described as a goodly people, of lively wit and great stature. Ribault continued to plant columns, and to take possession of the country after the usual forms, conferring names upon its several streams, which he borrowed for the purpose from similar well-known rivers in France. Thus, for a time, the St. Mary’s became the Seine; the Satilla, the Somme; the Altamaha, the Loire; the Ogechee, the Garonne; and the Savannah, the Gironde. The river to which his prows were especially directed, was that to which the name of Jordan had been given by Vasquez de Ayllon, some forty years before. This is our present Combahee. In sailing north, in this search, other smaller rivers were discovered, one of which was called the Belle-a-veoir. Separated by a furious tempest from his pinnaces, which had been kept in advance for the purpose of penetrating and exploring these streams, Ribault, with his ships, was compelled to stand out to sea. When he regained the coast and his pinnaces, he was advised of a “mightie river,” in which they had found safe harborage from the tempest, a river which, “in beautie and bignesse” exceeded all the former. Delighted with this discovery, our Huguenots made sail to reach this noble stream.

The object of Ribault had been some safe and pleasant harborage, in which his people could refresh themselves for a season. His desires were soon gratified. He cast anchor at the mouth of a mighty river, to which, “because of the fairnesse and largenesse thereoff,” he gave the name of Port Royale, the name which it still bears. The depth of this river is such, that, according to Laudonniere, “when the sea beginneth to flowe, the greatest shippes of France, yea, the argosies of Venice, may enter there.” Ribault, at the head of his soldiers, was the first to land. Grateful, indeed, to the eye and fancy of our Frenchmen, was the scene around them. They had already passed through a fairy-like region, of islet upon islet, reposing upon the deep,—crowned with green forests, and arresting, as it were, the wild assaults of ocean upon the shores of which they appeared to keep watch and guard. And, passing between these islets and the main, over stillest waters, with a luxuriant shrubbery on either hand, and vines and flowers of starred luxuriance trailing about them to the very lips of this ocean, they had arrived at an imperial growth of forest. The mighty shafts that rose around them, heavy with giant limbs, and massed in their luxuriant wealth of leaves, particularly impressed the minds of our voyagers—“mightye high oakes and infinite store of cedars,” and pines fitted for the masts of “such great ammirals” as had never yet floated in the European seas. Their senses were assailed with fresh and novel delights at every footstep. The superb magnolia, with its great and snow-white chalices; the flowering dogwood with its myriad blossoms, thick and richly gleaming as the starry host of heaven; the wandering jessamine, whose yellow trophies, mingling with grey mosses of the oak, stooped to the upward struggling billows of the deep, giving out odor at every rise and fall of the ambitious wavelet,—these, by their unwonted treasures of scent and beauty, compelled the silent but profound admiration of the strangers. “Exceeding pleasant” did the “very fragrant odour” make the place; while other novelties interposed to complete the fascinations of a spot, the peculiarities of which were equally fresh and delightful. Their farther acquaintance with the country only served to increase its attractions. As they wandered through the woods, they “saw nothing but turkey cocks flying in the forests, partridges, gray and red, little different from ours, but chiefly in bignesse;”—“we heard also within the woods the voices of stagges, of beares, of hyenas, of leopards, and divers other sorts of beasts unknown to us. Being delighted with this place, we set ourselves to fishing with nets, and caught such a number of fish that it was wonderful.”

The same region is still renowned for its fish and game, for the monsters as well as the multitudes of the deep, and for the deer of its spacious swamps and forests, which still exercise the skill and enterprise of the angler and the hunter. This is the peculiar region also, of the “Devil fish,” the “Vampire of the Ocean,” described by naturalists as of the genus Ray, species Dio-don, a leviathan of the deep, whose monstrous antennæ are thrown about the skiff of the fisherman with an embrace as perilous as that wanton sweep of his mighty extremities with which the whale flings abroad the crowding boats of his hardy captors. Sea and land, in this lovely neighborhood, still gleam freshly and wondrously upon the eye of the visitor as in the days of our Huguenot adventurers; and still do its forests, in spite of the cordon which civilization and society have everywhere drawn around them, harbor colonies of the bear which occasionally cross the path of the sportsman, and add to his various trophies of the chase.

With impressions of the scene and region such as realized to our Frenchmen the summer glories of an Arabian tale, it was easy to determine where to plant their colony. Modern conjecture, however, is still unsatisfied as to the site which was probably chosen by our voyagers. The language of Laudonniere is sufficiently vague and general to make the matter doubtful; and, unhappily, there are no remains which might tend to lessen the obscurity of the subject. The vessels had cast anchor at the mouth of Port Royal River. The pilots subsequently counselled that they should penetrate the stream, so as to secure a sheltered roadstead. They ascended the river accordingly, some three leagues from its mouth, when Ribault proceeded to make a closer examination of the country. The Port Royal “is divided into two great armes, whereof the one runneth toward the west, the other toward the north.” Our Huguenot captain chose the western avenue, which he ascended in his pinnace. For more than twelve leagues he continued this progress, until he “found another arme of the river which ranne towards the east, up which the captain determined to sail and leave the greate current.”

The red men whom they encounter on this progress are at first shy of the strangers and take flight at their approach, but they are soon encouraged by the gentleness and forbearance of the Frenchmen, who persuade them finally to confidence. An amiable understanding soon reconciles the parties, and the Floridian at length brings forward his gifts of maize, his palm baskets with fruits and flowers, his rudely-dressed skins of bear and beaver, and these are pledges of his amity which he does not violate. He, in turn, persuades the voyagers to draw near to the shore and finally to land. They are soon surrounded by the delighted and simple natives, whose gifts are multiplied duly in degree with the pleasure which they feel. Skins of the chamois—deer rather—and baskets of pearls, are offered to the chief among the whites, whom they proceed to entertain with shows of still greater courtesy. A bower of forest leaves and shrubs is soon built to shelter them “from the parching heate of the sunne,” and our Frenchmen lingered long enough among this artless and hospitable people to get tidings of a “greate Indian Lorde which had pearles in great abundance and silver also, all of which should be given them at the king’s arrival.” They invited the strangers to their dwellings—proffering to show them a thousand pleasures in shooting, and seeing the death of the stag.

Our Huguenots, excellent Christians though they were, were by no means insensible to the tidings of pearl and gold. These glimpses of treasures, already familiar to their imaginations, greatly increase, in their sight, the natural beauties of the country. The narratives of the red men, imperfectly understood, and construed by the desires of the strangers, rather than their minds, were full of marvels of neighboring lands and nations,—great empires of wealth and strength,—cities in romantic solitudes,—high places among almost inaccessible mountains, in which the treasures are equally precious and abundant. Listening to such legends, our Frenchmen linger with the red men, until the approach of night counsels them to seek the security of their ships.

But, with the dawning of the following day the explorations were resumed. Before leaving his vessel, however, Ribault provides himself with “a pillar of hard stone, fashioned like a column, whereon the armes of France were graven,” with the purpose of planting “the same in the fairest place that he coulde finde.” “This done, we embarked ourselves, and sayled three leagues towards the west; where we discovered a little river, up which wee sayled so long, that, in the ende, wee found it returned into the great current, and in his return, to make a little island separated from the firme lande, where wee went on shore, and by commandment of the captain, because it was exceeding faire and pleasant, there we planted the pillar upon a hillock open round about to the view and environed with a lake halfe a fathom deepe, of very good and sweete water.”

We are particular in these details, in the hope that future explorers may be thus assisted in the work of identifying the places marked by our Huguenots. Everything which they see in the new world which surrounds them, is imposing to the eye and grateful to the sense. They wander among avenues of gigantic pines that remind them of the mighty colonnades in the great cathedrals of the old world. They are at once exhilarated by a sense of unwonted freshness and beauty in what they behold, and by aspects of grandeur and vastness which solemnize all their thoughts and fancies. With these feelings, when, in their wanderings, they arouse from the shady covers where they browsed “two stagges of exceeding bignesse, in respect of those which they had seene before,” their captain forbids that they should shoot them, though they might easily have done so. The anecdote speaks well for Ribault’s humanity. It was not wholly because he was “moved with the singular fairenesse and bignesse of them,” as Laudonniere imagines, but because his soul was lifted with religious sentiment—filled with worship at that wondrous temple of nature in which the great Jehovah seemed visibly present, in love and mercy, as in the first sweet days of the creation.

To the little river which surrounded the islet, on which the pillar was raised, they gave the name of “Liborne.” The island itself is supposed to be that which is now called Lemon Island. The matter is one which still admits of doubt, though scarcely beyond the reach of certainty, in a close examination from the guide posts which we still possess. It is a question which may well provoke the diligence of the local antiquary. “Another isle, not far distant from” that of the pillar, next claimed the attention of the voyagers. Here they “found nothing but tall cedars, the fairest that were seene in this country. For this cause wee called it the Isle of Cedars.”

This ended their exploration for the day. A few days were consumed in farther researches, without leading to any new discoveries. In the meantime, Ribault prepared to execute the commands of his sovereign, in the performance of one of the tasks which civilization but too frequently sanctions at the expense of humanity. He was commanded by the Queen-mother to capture and carry home to France a couple of the natives. These, as we have seen, were a mild race, maintaining among themselves a gentle intercourse, and exercising towards strangers a grateful hospitality. It was with a doubtful propriety that our Frenchman determined to separate any of them from their homes and people. But it was not for Ribault to question the decrees of that sovereign whom it was the policy of the Huguenots, at present, to conciliate. Having selected a special and sufficient complement of soldiers, he determined “to returne once againe toward the Indians which inhabiteth that arme of the river which runneth toward the West.” The pinnace was prepared for this purpose. The object of the voyage was successful. The Indians were again found where they had been at first encountered. The Frenchmen were received with hospitality. Ribault made his desires known to the king or chief of the tribe, who graciously gave his permission. Two of the Indians, who fancied that they were more favored than the rest of their brethren, by the choice of the Frenchmen, yielded very readily to the entreaties which beguiled them on board one of the vessels. They probably misunderstood the tenor of the application; or, in their savage simplicity, concluded that a voyage to the land of the pale-faces was only some such brief journey as they were wont to make, in their cypress canoes, from shore to shore along their rivers—or possibly as far down as the great frith in which their streams were lost. But it was not long before our savage voyagers were satisfied with the experiment. They soon ceased to be pleased or flattered with the novelty of their situation. The very attentions bestowed upon them only provoked their apprehensions. The cruise wearied them; and, when they found that the vessels continued to keep away from the land, they became seriously uneasy. Born swimmers, they had no fear about making the shore when once in the water: and it required the utmost vigilance of the Frenchmen to keep them from darting overboard. It was in vain, for a long time, that they strove to appease and to soothe the unhappy captives. Their detention, against their desires, now made them indignant. Gifts were pressed upon them, such as they were known to crave and to esteem above all other possessions. But these they rejected with scorn. They would receive nothing in exchange for their liberty. The simple language in which the old chronicler describes the scene and their sorrows, has in it much that is highly touching, because of its very simplicity. They felt their captivity, and were not to be beguiled from this humiliating conviction by any trappings or soothings. Their freedom—the privilege of eager movements through billow and forest—sporting as wantonly as bird and fish in both—was too precious for any compensation. They sank down upon the deck, with clasped hands, sitting together apart from the crew, gazing upon the shores with mournful eyes, and chaunting a melancholy ditty, which seemed to the watchful and listening Frenchmen a strain of exile and lamentation—“agreeing so sweetly together, that, in hearing their song, it seemed that they lamented the absence of their friendes.” And thus they continued all night to sing without ceasing.