Of this King Calos, the narrative of our Spaniards goes farther, passing finally into the province of the miraculous. He is described as a prince held in special reverence by his subjects;—not simply for his valor as a soldier, or his wisdom as a ruler, but his wondrous powers as a magician. He seems to have combined the civil and the religious powers of the nation—to have been priest and prophet as well as Governor. The government of his country, like that of simple nations generally, was theocratic and patriarchal. His people were taught to believe that it was through his spells and incantations, that the earth brought forth her fruits. He resorted to various arts to perpetuate this faith, and various cruelties to subdue and punish that spirit of inquiry which might test too closely the propriety of his spiritual claims. Twice a year he retired from the sight of all his subjects, two or three of his friends alone excepted, and was supposed, at this season, to be busy with his mighty sorceries. Woe to the unlucky wretch who, whether purposely or by accident, intruded upon his mysteries. The dwelling to which he had resort was tabooed on every hand; and death, with the most fearful penalties, stood warningly at all the avenues by which it was approached. Each year a prisoner was sacrificed to the savage god he served; and this prisoner, so long as Barbu had been a captive, had been a Spaniard always—the supply being sufficient, from the frequency of wrecks upon the coast, by which an adequate number of captives was always to be had. The dominions of Calos are described as lying along a river, beyond the cape of Florida, forty or fifty leagues towards the southwest; while those of Onathaqua were nearer to La Caroline, on the northern side of the cape, “in a place which we call in the chart, Cannaverel, which is in 28 degrees
.”
When the two Spaniards were brought before Laudonniere they were entirely naked. Their hair hung below their loins, as did that of the savages; and so completely had they become accustomed to the habits of the red-men, that the resumption of the costume of civilization was not only strange but irksome. But Laudonniere was not disposed to permit their acquired habits to supersede those of their origin. He caused the hair of his newly-found Christians to be shorn, as heedless of the loss of strength which might follow as ever was Dalilah while docking the long locks of her giant lover. It was with great reluctance that the wild men submitted to this shearing. When the hair was finally taken off they insisted upon preserving it, and rolling it in linen put it away carefully, to be shown in Europe as a proof of their wild and cruel experience. In removing the shock from one of them, a little treasure of gold was found hidden in its masses, to the value of five-and-twenty crowns, by which the Spaniard conclusively proved that one portion of his Spanish education had never deserted him. What a commentary upon the wisdom of civilization, that, in such a state, with such bonds, after such losses, of freedom, position, and the society of all the well-beloved and equal, his heart should still yearn for the keeping of a treasure which must, at every moment, have only served to mock the possessor with the dearer treasures of home, country, friends, religion, of which his fortunes had made utter forfeit. But let us pass to the narrative of Barbu, himself—one of the recovered Spaniards—which we owe, in some degree to history, but mostly to tradition.
[XVII.]
THE NARRATIVE OF LE BARBU:
THE BEARDED MAN OF CALOS.
Now when Barbu, the bearded man, who had been dwelling among the people of Calos, had been shorn of the long and matted hair and beard, which had made him much more fearful to the eye than any among the savages themselves,—and when our right worthy captain had commanded that we should bathe and cleanse him, and had given him shirts of fine linen and clothes from his own wardrobe, so that he should once more appear like a Christian man among his kindred,—albeit he seemed to be greatly disquieted, and exceedingly awkward therein,—then did he conduct him into the corps de garde, where our people were all bidden to assemble. There, being seated all, Barbu, the Spaniard, being entreated thereto by our right worthy captain, proceeded to unfold the full relation of the grievous strait and peril by which he had fallen into the power of King Calos, and of what happened to him thereafter. And it was curious to see how that he, a Spaniard born, and not ill-educated in one of the goodly towns of old Spain, in all gentle learning, should, in the space of fifteen years sojourn among the savages, have so greatly suffered the loss of his native tongue. Slow was he of speech, and greatly minded to piece out with the Indian language the many words in which the memory of his own had failed him. Well was it for our understanding of what he delivered, that so many of us had been dwelling among the red-men at other times,—to speak nothing of Monsieur D’Erlach, Monsieur Ottigny, both lieutenants in the garrison, and Monsieur La Roche Ferriere, who, with another, by special commandment of our captain, had dwelt for a matter of several months among the people of King Olata Utina. By means of the help brought by these, we were enabled to find the meaning of those words in which Barbu failed in his Spanish. So it was that we followed the fortunes of the bearded man, according to the narrative as here set down.
Then, at the repeated entreaty of Monsieur Laudonniere, Barbu arose and spoke:
“First, Señor Captain, I have to declare how much I thank you for the protection you have given me, the kindness which has clad me once more in Christian garments, and the cost and travail with which you have recovered me from my bonds among the heathen. Albeit, that I feel strangely in these new habits, and that my native tongue comes back to me slowly when I would speak from a full and overflowing heart, yet will I strive to make you sensible of all the facts in my sad history, and of the great gratitude which I feel for those by whose benevolence I may fondly hope that my troubles are about to end. I know not now the day or season when we left the port of Nombre de Dios, in an excellent ship, well filled with treasures of the mine, and a goodly company, on our return to the land of our fathers beyond the sea. My own share in the wealth of this vessel was considerable, and I had other treasures in the person of a dear brother, and a sister who accompanied us. Our sister was married to one who was with us also, and the united wealth of the three, such was our fond expectations, would enable us to retire to our native town of Burgos, and commend us to the favor of our people. But it was written that we should not realize these blessed expectations, and that I alone, of the four, should be again permitted to dwell among a Christian people. Yet I give not up the hope that I shall yet see my brother, who was carried away among the Indians of the far west, when we were scattered among the tribes, in the grand division of our captives. But this part of my story comes properly hereafter.
“We put to sea from the port of Nombre de Dios with very favoring winds; but these lasted us not long, ere they came out from all quarters of the heavens, and we ran before the storm under a rag of sail, without knowing in what course we sped. Thus, for three days, we were driven before the baffling winds; and when the storm lulled, the clouds still hung about us, and our pilot wot nothing of that part of the sea in which we went. Two days more followed, and still we were saddened by the clouds that kept evermore coming down from heaven, and brooding upon the deep like great fogs that gather in the morn among the mountains. Thus we sped, weary and desponding as we were, without any certainty as to the course we kept, or the region of space or country round about us. Meanwhile, the seams of our vessel began to yawn, and great was the labor which followed, to all hands, to keep her clear of water. This we did not wholly; and it was in vain that our carpenter sought for, in order to stop, the leak. Thus, weary and sad, we continued still sweeping forward slowly, looking anxiously, with many prayers, for the sun by day and the moon and stars by night. But the Blessed Virgin was implored in vain. We had offended. There was treasure on board the vessel, but it was stained with blood. You have not heard in your histories of the bloody Juan de Mores y Silva, who tortured the unhappy Mexicans by fire, even in the caverns where they resided, seeking the gold, which they gained not sufficiently soon, or in sufficient quantity, to satisfy his cruel lust for wealth. He was one of our companions on this voyage, bound homewards with an immense subsidy in ingots—huge chests of gold and silver—with which he aimed to swell into grandeur with new titles, when he arrived in Spain. But the just Providence willed it otherwise. He was, doubtless, the Jonah in our vessel, who fought against the prayers for mercy and protection which the true believers addressed to the Holy Virgin in our behalf.”