Hugh MacKay, who
proved himself to be an excellent officer and a man of executive
ability, by the middle of February they had constructed a fort
consisting of two bastions and two half bastions, which was so strong
that forty men could maintain it against three hundred, and on it placed
four pieces, which, afterwards was so enlarged as to demand twelve
cannon; built a guardhouse, storehouse, a chapel, and huts for the
people. One of the men dying, the rest joined and built a house for the
widow.

In the meantime Oglethorpe had sailed from London on board the Symonds,
accompanied by the London Merchant, with additional emigrants, and
arrived in the Tybee Road a short time after the Highlanders had left.
He had never met them, and desiring to understand their ways and to make
as favorable an impression on them as possible, he retained Captain
Dunbar to go with him to the Highlanders and to instruct him fully in
their customs. On February 22d he left St. Simons and rowing up the
Alatamaha after three hours, reached the Highland settlement. Upon
seeing the boat approaching, the Highlanders marched out to meet him,
and made a most manly appearance in their plaids, with claymores,
targets and fire-arms. Captain MacKay invited Oglethorpe to lie in his
tent, where there was a bed with sheets--a rarity as yet in that part of
the world. He excused himself, choosing to lie at the guard-fire,
wrapped in his plaid, for he had on the Highland garb. Captain MacKay
and the other gentlemen did the same, though the night was cold.

Oglethorpe had previously taken the precaution, lest the Highlanders
might be apprehensive of an attack by the Spaniards, Indians, or other
enemies, while their houses were in process of construction, to send
Captain James McPherson, who commanded the rangers upon the Savannah,
overland to support them. This troop arrived while Oglethorpe was yet
present. Soon after they were visited by the Indians, who were attracted
by their costume, and ever after retained an admiration for them, which
was enhanced by the Highlanders entering into their wild sports, and
joining them in the chase. In order to connect the new settlement with
direct land communication with the other colonists, Oglethorpe, in
March, directed Hugh MacKay, with a detachment of twelve rangers, to
conduct Walter Augustin, who ran a traverse line from Savannah by Fort
Argyle to Darien, in order to locate a roadway.

It was during Oglethorpe's fir