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.”  Despite his dismal condition, the visitor was told that he might expect to live in the course of Nature thirty or forty years more.  As the two patriarchs sat face to face, half hidden with their streaming white hair, Ottigny and his credulous soldiers looked from one to the other, lost in wonder and admiration.

Man and Nature alike seemed to mark the borders of the River of May as the site of the new colony; for here, around the Indian towns, the harvests of maize, beans, and pumpkins promised abundant food, while the river opened a ready way to the mines of gold and silver and the stores of barbaric wealth which glittered before the dreaming vision of the colonists.  Yet, the better to content himself and his men, Laudonniere weighed anchor, and sailed for a time along the neighboring coasts.  Returning, confirmed in his first impression, he set forth with a party of officers and soldiers to explore the borders of the chosen stream.  The day was hot.  The sun beat fiercely on the woollen caps and heavy doublets of the men, till at length they gained the shade of one of those deep forests of pine where the dead and sultry air is thick with resinous odors, and the earth, carpeted with fallen leaves, gives no sound beneath the foot.  Yet, in the stillness, deer leaped up on all sides as they moved along.  Then they emerged into sunlight.  A broad meadow, a running brook, a lofty wall of encircling forests.  The men called it the Vale of Laudonniere.  The afternoon was spent, and the sun was near its setting, when they reached the bank of the river.  They strewed the ground with boughs and leaves, and, stretched on that sylvan couch, slept the sleep of travel-worn and weary men.

At daybreak they were roused by sound of trumpet.  Men and officers joined their voices in a psalm, then betook themselves to their task.  Their task was the building of a fort, and this was the chosen spot.  It was a tract of dry ground on the brink of the river, immediately above St. John’s Bluff.  On the right was the bluff; on the left, a marsh; in front, the river; behind, the forest.

Boats came up the stream with laborers, tents, provision, cannon, and tools.  The engineers marked out the work in the form of a triangle; and, from the noble volunteer to the meanest artisan, all lent a hand to complete it.  On the river side the defences were a palisade of timber.  On the two other sides were a ditch, and a rampart of fascines, earth, and sods.  At each angle was a bastion, in one of which was the magazine.  Within was a spacious parade, and around it various buildings for lodging and storage.  A large house with covered galleries was built on the side towards the river for Laudonniere and his officers.  In honor of Charles IX the fort was named Fort Caroline.