marsh, some five miles from the mouth of the river, they saw a ridge of
high ground abutting on the water, which, flowing beneath in a deep,
strong current, had undermined it, and left a steep front of yellowish
sand. This was the hill now called St. John's Bluff. Here they landed
and entered the woods, where Laudonniere stopped to rest while his
lieutenant, Ottigny, with a sergeant and a few soldiers, went to explore
the country.

They pushed their way through the thickets till they were stopped by a
marsh choked with reeds, at the edge of which, under a great
laurel-tree, they had seated themselves to rest, overcome with the
summer heat, when five Indians suddenly appeared, peering timidly at
them from among the bushes. Some of the men went towards them with signs
of friendship, on which, taking heart, they drew near, and one of them,
who was evidently a chief, made a long speech, inviting the strangers to
their dwellings. The way was across the marsh, through which they
carried the lieutenant and two or three of the soldiers on their backs,
while the rest circled by a narrow path through the woods. When they
reached the lodges, a crowd of Indians came out "to receive our men
gallantly, and feast them after their manner." One of them brought a
large earthen vessel full of spring water, which was served out to each
in turn in a wooden cup. But what most astonished the French was a
venerable chief, who assured them that he was the father of five
successive generations, and that he had lived two hundred and fifty
years. Opposite sat a still more ancient veteran, the father of the
first, shrunken to a mere anatomy, and "seeming to be rather a dead
carkeis than a living body." "Also," pursues the history, "his age was
so great that the good man had lost his sight, and could not speak one
onely word but with exceeding great paine." In spite of his dismal
condition, the visitors were told that he might expect to live, in the