Two leagues distant from La Caroline, on the opposite side of May River, stood the Indian village of Saravahi. Not far from this might be seen the smokes of another village, named Emoloa. The Frenchmen, wandering through the woods in search of game, had alighted suddenly upon these primitive communities. Here they had been received with gentleness and love. The natives were lively and benevolent. They had never felt the wrath of the white man, nor been made to suffer because of his improvidence and necessities. His thunderbolts had never hurled among their columns, and mown them down as with a fiery scythe from heaven. The Frenchmen did not fail to remark that they were provident tribes, with corn-fields much more ample than were common among the Indians. These, they now concluded, must be covered with golden grain, in the season of harvest, and thither, accordingly, Laudonniere dispatched his boats. A judicious officer conducted the detachment, and stores of European merchandize were confided to him for the purposes of traffic. He was not disappointed in his expectations. His soldiers were received with open arms; and a “good store of mil,” speaking comparatively, was readily procured from the abundance of the Indians.
But, in preparation for the return to France, other and larger supplies were necessary. The boats were again made ready, and confided to La Vasseur and D’Erlach. They proceeded to the river to which the French had given their name of Somme, now known as the Satilla, but which was then called among the Indians, the Iracana, after their own beautiful queen. Of this queen our Frenchmen had frequently been told. She had been described to them as the fairest creature, in the shape of woman, that the country had beheld: nor was the region over which she swayed, regarded with less admiration. This was spoken of as a sort of terrestrial paradise. Here, the vales were more lovely; the waters more cool and pellucid than in any other of the territories of earth. Here, the earth produced more abundantly than elsewhere; the trees were more stately and magnificent, the flowers more beautiful and gay, and the vines more heavily laden with grapes of the most delicious flavor. Sweetest islets rose along the shore over which the moon seemed to linger with a greater fondness, and soft breezes played ever in the capacious forests, always kindling to emotions of pleasure, the soft beatings of the delighted heart. The influences of scene and climate were felt for good amongst the people who were represented at once as the most generous and gentle of all the Floridian natives. They had no wild passions, and coveted no fierce delights. Under the sway of a woman, at once young and beautiful, the daughter of their most favorite monarch, their souls had become attuned to sympathies which greatly tended to subdue and to soothe the savage nature. Their lives were spent in sports and dances. No rebukes or restraints of duty, no sordid cares or purposes, impaired the dream of youth and rapture which prevailed everywhere in the hearts of the people. Gay assemblages were ever to be found among the villages in the forests; singing their own delights and imploring the stranger to be happy also. They had a thousand songs and sports of youth and pleasure, which made life a perpetual round of ever freshening felicity. Innocent as wild, no eye of the ascetic could rebuke enjoyments which violated no cherished laws of experience and thought, and their glad and sprightly dances, in the deep shadows of the wood, to the lively clatter of Indian gourds and tambourines, were quite as significant of harmless fancies as of thoughtless lives. Happy was the lonely voyager, speeding along the coast, in his frail canoe, when, suddenly darting out from the forests of Iracana, a slight but lovely creature, with flowing tunic of white
cotton, stood upon the head land, waving her branch of palm or myrtle, entreating his approach, and imploring him to delay his journey, while he shared in the sweet festivities of love and youth, for a season, upon the shore,—crying with a sweet chant,—
“Love you me not, oh, lonely voyager—love you me not? Lo! am I not lovely; I who serve the beautiful queen of Iracana? will you not come to me, for a while!—come, hide the canoe among the reeds, along the shore, and make merry with the damsels of Iracana. I give to thee the palm and the myrtle, in token of a welcome of peace and love. Come hither, oh! lonely voyager, and be happy for a season!”
And seldom were these persuasions unavailing. The lonely voyager was commonly won, as was he who, sailing by Scylla and Charybdis, refused to seal his ears with wax against the song of the Syren. But our charmers, along the banks of the Satilla, entreated to no evil, laid no snares for the unwary, meditating their destruction. They sought only to share the pleasures which they themselves enjoyed. The benevolence of that love which holds its treasure as of little value, unless its delights may be bestowed on others, was the distinguishing moral in the Indian Eden of Iracana; and he who came with love, never departed without a sorrow, such as made him linger as he went, and soon return, when this were possible, to a region, which, among our Floridians, realized that period of the Classic Fable, which has always been designated, par excellence, as the “age of gold.”
Our Frenchmen, under the conduct of La Vasseur and D’Erlach, reached the frontiers of Iracana, at an auspicious period. The season of harvest, among all primitive and simple nations, is commonly a season of great rejoicing. Among a people like those of Iracana, habitually accustomed to rejoice, it is one in which delight becomes exultation, and when in the supreme felicity of good fortune, the happy heart surpasses itself in the extraordinary expression of its joy. Here were assembled to the harvest, all the great lords of the surrounding country. Here was Athoree, the gigantic son of Satouriova, a very Anak, among the Floridians. Here were Apalou, a famous chieftain,—Tacadocorou, and many others, whom our Frenchmen had met and known before;—some of whom indeed, they had known in fierce conflict, and a strife which had never been healed by any of the gentle offices of peace.
But Iracana was the special territory of peace. It was not permitted, among the Floridians, to approach this realm with angry purpose. Here war and strife were tabooed things,—shut out, denied and banished, and peace and love, and rapture, were alone permitted exercise in abodes which were too grateful to all parties, to be desecrated by hostile passions. When, therefore, our Frenchmen, beholding those only with whom they had so lately fought, were fain to betake themselves to their weapons, the chiefs themselves, with whom they had done battle, came forward to embrace them, with open arms.
“Brothers, all—brothers here, in Iracana;” was the common speech. “Be happy here, brothers, no fight, no scalp, nothing but love in Iracana,—nothing but dance and be happy.”
Even had not this assurance sufficed with our Frenchmen, the charms of the lovely Queen herself, her grace and sweetness, not unmixed with a dignity which declared her habitual rule, must have stifled every feeling of distrust in their bosoms, and effectually exorcised that of war. She came to meet the strangers with a mingled ease and state, a sweetness and a majesty, which were inexpressibly attractive. She took a hand of La Vasseur and of D’Erlach, with each of her own. A bright, happy smile lightened in her eye, and warmed her slightly dusky features with a glow. Rich in hue, yet delicately thin, her lips parted with a pleasure, as she spoke to them, which no art could simulate. She bade them welcome, joined their hands with those of the great warriors by whom she was attended, and led them away among her damsels, of whom a numerous array were assembled, all habited in the richest garments of their scanty wardrobes.