“We were constrayned to eate rootes, which the most part of our men punned in the mortars which I had brought with me to beate gunnepowder in, and the graine which came to us from other places. Some tooke the wood of esquine, (?) beate it, and made meale thereof, which they boiled with water, and eate it. Others went with their harquebusies to seeke to kill some foule. Yea, this miserie was so great, that that one was founde that had gathered up all the fish-bones that he could finde, which he dried and beate into powder to make bread thereof. The effects of this hidious famine appeared incontinently among us, for our bones eftsoones beganne to cleave so neare unto the skinne, that the most part of the souldiers had their skinnes pierced thorow with them in many partes of their bodies, in such sort that my greatest feare was, least the Indians would rise up against us, considering that it would have beene very harde for us to have defended ourselves in such extreme decay of all our forces, besides the scarsitie of all vittualls, which fayled us all at once. For the very river had not such plentie of fish as it was wont, and it seemed that the very land and water did fight against us.” In this condition were they till the beginning of June. “During which time,” says the chronicler, further—“the poore souldiers and handicraftsmen became as feeble as might be, and being not able to worke, did nothing but goe, one after another, as centinels, unto the clift of an hill, situate very neare unto the fort, to see if they might discover any French ship.”
But their watchings still ended with disappointment. Thus was the hope with which the heart sickens, deferred too long. No ships greeted their famishing eyes, and they at length appealed to their commander, in a body, to take measures for returning to France, and abandoning the colony,—“considering that if wee let passe the season to embarke ourselves, wee were never like to see our country;” and alleging, plausibly enough, that new troubles had probably broken out in France, which was the reason that they had failed to receive the promised succors. Laudonniere lent an easy ear to their demands. He, himself, was probably quite as sick of the duties, to which he was evidently unequal, as were his followers. It was, perhaps, prudent to submit to those for whom he could no longer provide. The bark “Breton” was fitted up, and given in charge to Captain Vasseur; and, as this vessel could carry but a small portion of the colony, it was determined to build a “faire ship,” which the shipwrights affirmed could be made ready by the 8th of August. “Immediately I disposed of the time to worke upon it. I gave charge to Monsieur de Ottigny, my lieutenant, to cause timber necessary for the finishing of bothe the vessels to be brought, and to Monsieur D’Erlach, my standard-bearer, to goe with a barke a league off from the forte, to cut down trees fit to make plankes.” Sixteen men, under the charge of a sergeant, were set “to labour in making coals; and to Master Hance, keeper of the artillery,” was assigned the task of procuring rosin to bray the vessels. “There remained now but the principal, [object,] which was to recover vittualls, to sustain us while the worke endured.” Laudonniere, himself, undertook to seek for this supply. He embarked with thirty men in the largest of his vessels, with the purpose of running along the coast for forty or fifty leagues. But his search was taken in vain. He procured no supplies. He returned to the fort only to defraud the expectations of his people, who now grew desperate with hunger and discontent. They assembled together, riotously, and, with one voice, insisted that the only process by which to extort supplies from the savages was to seize upon the person of their kings.
To this, at first, Laudonniere would not consent. The enterprise was a rash one. The consequences might be evil, in regard to any future attempts at settlement. He proposed one more trial among them, and sent despatches communicating his desire to traffic for food with the surrounding tribes. The Indians were not averse to listen. But they knew the distress under which the Frenchmen suffered, and were prepared to turn it to account. They came into the garrison with small supplies of grain and fish, enough to provoke appetite rather than to satisfy it. For these they demanded such enormous prices, as, if conceded, would have soon exhausted all the merchandise of the garrison. With one hand they extended their produce, while the other was stretched for the equivalent required. Knowing the desperation of the Frenchmen, they took care, while thus tantalizing their hopes and hunger, to keep out of reach of shot of arquebuse. In this way, they took the very shirts from the backs of the starving soldiers. When Laudonniere remonstrated against their prices, their answer was a bitter mockery.
“Very good,” said the savages, “if thou make such great account of thy merchandise, let it stay thy hunger. Do thou eat of it and we will eat of our fish.” This reply would be cheered with their open-throated laughter. The old ally of the French, the Paracoussi Utina, mocked them in like manner. His subjects followed his example; and, in the end, goaded to madness, Laudonniere resolved on adopting the course which his people had counselled; that, by which, taking one of their kings prisoner, food could be extorted for his ransom. The ingratitude of Utina, for past services, a recent attempt which he had made to employ the French soldiers in his own conquests, while professing to lead them only where they should find provisions, and the supposed extent of his resources, pointed him out to all parties as the proper person upon whom to try the experiment, on a small scale, which Cortez and Pizzarro had used, on a large one, in the conquest of Peru and Mexico.
[XIX.]
Of the captivity of the Great Paracoussi—Olata Ouvae Utina, and the war which followed between his people and the French.
CHAPTER I.
It being determined by Laudonniere, in the necessities of his people, to seize upon the person of the great Paracoussi, Olata Ouvae Utina, in order, by the ransom which he should extort, to relieve the famine which prevailed among the garrison, he proceeded to make his preparations for the event. Two of his barks were put in order for this purpose, and a select body of fifty men was chosen from his ranks to accompany him on the expedition. But this select body, though the very best men of the garrison, exhibited but few external proofs of their adequacy for the enterprise. So lean of flesh, so shrunk of sinew, so hollow-eyed were they, that their picture recals to us the description given by Shakspeare of the famished and skeleton regiments of Henry of Monmouth at the famous field of Agincourt—‘A poor and starved band,’ the very ‘shales and husks of men,’ with scarcely blood enough in all their veins, to stain the Indian hatchet, which they travel to provoke. But famine endows the sinews with a vigor of its own. Hunger enforced to the last extremities of nature, clothes the spirit of the man in the passions of the wolf and tiger. Lean and feeble as are our Frenchmen, they are desperate. They are in the mood to brave the forest chief in his fastnesses, and to seize upon his own heart, in the lack of other food. The very desperation of their case secures them against any misgivings.
The dominions of Holata Utina were distant from La Caroline, between forty and fifty leagues up the river. His chief town, where he dwelt, lay some six more leagues inland, a space over which our Frenchmen had to march. Leaving a sufficient