Nor less did the fruitful river teem with varied forms of animal life.  From the caverns of leafy shade came the gleam and flicker of many-colored plumage.  The cormorant, the pelican, the heron, floated on the water, or stalked along its pebbly brink.  Among the sedges, the alligator, foul from his native mud, outstretched his hideous length, or, sluggish and sullen, drifted past the boat, his grim head level with the surface, and each scale, each folding of his horny hide, distinctly visible, as, with the slow movement of distended paws, he balanced himself in the water.  When, at sunset, they drew up their boat on the strand, and built their camp-fire under the arches of the woods, the shores resounded with the roaring of these colossal lizards; all night the forest rang with the whooping of the owls; and in the morning the sultry mists that wrapped the river were vocal, far and near, with the clamor of wild turkeys.

Among such scenes, for twenty leagues, the adventurous sail moved on.  Far to the right, beyond the silent waste of pines, lay the realm of the mighty Potanou.  The Thimagoa towns were still above them on the river, when they saw three canoes of this people at no great distance in front.  Forthwith the two Indians in the boat were fevered with excitement.  With glittering eyes they snatched pike and sword, and prepared for fight; but the sage Ottigny, bearing slowly down on the strangers, gave them time to run their craft ashore and escape to the woods.  Then, landing, he approached the canoes, placed in them a few trinkets, and withdrew to a distance.  The fugitives took heart, and, step by step, returned.  An amicable intercourse was opened, with assurances of friendship on the part of the French, a procedure viewed by Satouriona’s Indians with unspeakable disgust and ire.

The ice thus broken, Ottigny returned to Fort Caroline; and a fortnight later, an officer named Vasseur sailed up the river to pursue the adventure:  for the French, thinking that the nation of the Thimagoa lay betwixt them and the gold-mines, would by no means quarrel with them, and Laudonniere repented him already of his rash pledge to Satouriona.

As Vasseur moved on, two Indians hailed him from the shore, inviting him to their dwellings.  He accepted their guidance, and presently saw before him the cornfields and palisades of an Indian town.  Led through the wondering crowd to the lodge of the chief, Mollua, Vasseur and his followers were seated in the place of honor and plentifully regaled with fish and bread.  The repast over, Mollua began his discourse.  He told them that he was one of the forty vassal chiefs of the great Outina, lord of all the Thimagoa, whose warriors wore armor of gold and silver plate.  He told them, too, of Potanou, his enemy, a mighty and redoubted prince; and of the two kings of the distant Appalachian Mountains, rich beyond utterance in gems and gold.  While thus, with earnest pantomime and broken words, the chief discoursed with his guests,