Ranging the woods, they found them full of game, wild turkeys and partridges, bears and lynxes.  Two deer, of unusual size, leaped up from the underbrush.  Crossbow and arquebuse were brought to the level; but the Huguenot captain, “moved with the singular fairness and bigness of them,” forbade his men to shoot.

Preliminary exploration, not immediate settlement, had been the object of the voyage, but all was still rose-color in the eyes of the voyagers, and many of their number would fain linger in the New Canaan.  Ribaut was more than willing to humor them.  He mustered his company on deck, and made them a stirring harangue:  appealed to their courage and their patriotism, told them how, from a mean origin, men rise by enterprise and daring to fame and fortune, and demanded who among them would stay behind and hold Port Royal for the king.  The greater part came forward, and “with such a good will and joly corage,” writes the commander, “as we had much to do to stay their importunitie.”  Thirty were chosen, and Albert de Pierria was named to command them.

A fort was forthwith begun, on a small stream called the Chenonceau, probably Archer’s Creek, about six miles from the site of Beaufort.  They named it Charlesfort, in honor of the unhappy son of Catherine de Medicis, Charles IX., the future hero of St. Bartholomew.  Ammunition and stores were sent on shore, and, on the eleventh of June, with his diminished company, Ribaut, again embarking, spread his sails for France.

From the beach at Hilton Head Albert and his companions might watch the receding ships, growing less and less on the vast expanse of blue, dwindling to faint specks, then vanishing on the pale verge of the waters.  They were alone in those fearful solitudes.  From the North Pole to Mexico no Christian denizen but they.

But how were they to subsist?  Their thought was not of subsistence, but of gold.  Of the thirty, the greater number were soldiers and sailors, with a few gentlemen, that is to say, men of the sword, born within the pale of nobility, who at home could neither labor nor trade without derogation from their rank.  For a time they busied themselves with finishing their fort, and, this done, set forth in quest of adventures.

The Indians had lost all fear of them.  Ribaut had enjoined upon them to use all kindness and gentleness in their dealing with the men of the woods; and they more than obeyed him.  They were soon hand and glove with chiefs, warriors, and squaws; and as with Indians the adage that familiarity breeds contempt holds with peculiar force, they quickly divested themselves of the prestige which had attached at the outset to their supposed character of children of the sun.  Goodwill, however, remained, and this the colonists abused to the utmost