Next they anchored near Fernandina, and to a neighboring river, probably the St. Mary’s, gave the name of the Seine.  Here, as morning broke on the fresh, moist meadows hung with mists, and on broad reaches of inland waters which seemed like lakes, they were tempted to land again, and soon “espied an innumerable number of footesteps of great Hartes and Hindes of a wonderfull greatnesse, the steppes being all fresh and new, and it seemeth that the people doe nourish them like tame Cattell.”  By two or three weeks of exploration they seem to have gained a clear idea of this rich semi-aquatic region.  Ribaut describes it as “a countrie full of hauens riuers and Ilands of such fruitfulnes, as cannot with tongue be expressed.”  Slowly moving northward, they named each river, or inlet supposed to be a river, after the streams of France,—­the Loire, the Charente, the Garonne, the Gironde.  At length, they reached a scene made glorious in after-years.  Opening betwixt flat and sandy shores, they saw a commodious haven, and named it Port Royal.

On the twenty—­seventh of May they crossed the bar, where the war-ships of Dupont crossed three hundred years later.[1] They passed Hilton Head, where Rebel batteries belched their vain thunder, and, dreaming nothing of what the rolling centuries should bring forth, held their course along the peaceful bosom of Broad River.  On the left they saw a stream which they named Libourne, probably Skull Creek; on the right, a wide river, probably the Beaufort.  When they landed, all was solitude.  The frightened Indians had fled, but they lured them back with knives, beads, and looking-glasses, and enticed two of them on board their ships.  Here, by feeding, clothing, and caressing them, they tried to wean them from their fears, but the captive warriors moaned and lamented day and night, till Ribaut, with the prudence and humanity which seem always to have characterized him, gave over his purpose of carrying them to France, and set them ashore again.

    [Footnote 1:  The following is the record of this early visit to
    Port Royal, taken from Ribaut’s report to Coliguy, translated and
    printed in London in 1563:—­

“And when wee had sounded the entrie of the Chanell (thanked be God), wee entered safely therein with our shippes, against the opinion of many, finding the same one of the fayrest, and greatest Hauens of the worlde.  Howe be it, it must be remembred, least men approaching neare it within seven leagues of the lande, bee abashed and afraide on the East side, drawing toward the Southeast, the grounde to be flatte, for neuerthelesse at a full sea, there is eurey where foure fathome water keeping the right Chanel.”

Ribaut thinks that the Broad River of Port Royal is the Jordan of the Spanish navigator Vasquez de Ayllon, who was here in 1520, and gave the name St. Helena to a neighboring cape (La Vega, Florida del Inca).  The adjacent