tains of Appalachee. He sent to the fort
mantles woven with feathers, quivers covered with choice furs, arrows
tipped with gold, wedges of a green stone like beryl or emerald, and
other trophies of his wanderings. A gentleman named Grotaut took up the
quest, and penetrated to the dominions of Hostaqua, who could muster
three or four thousand warriors, and who promised with the aid of a
hundred arquebusiers to conquer all the kings of the adjacent mountains,
and subject them and their gold-mines to the rule of the French. A
humbler adventurer was Peter Gamble, a robust and daring youth, who had
been brought up in the household of Coligny, and was now a soldier under
Laudonniere. The latter gave him leave to trade with the Indians, a
privilege which he used so well that he grew rich with his traffic,
became prime favorite with the chief of Edelano, married his daughter,
and, in his absence, reigned in his stead. But, as his sway verged
towards despotism, his subjects took offence, and beat out his brains
with a hatchet.

During the winter, Indians from the neighborhood of Cape Canaveral
brought to the fort two Spaniards, wrecked fifteen years before on the
southwestern extremity of the peninsula. They were clothed like the
Indians,--in other words, were not clothed at all,--and their uncut hair
streamed wildly down their backs. They brought strange tales of those
among whom they had dwelt. They told of the King of Calos, on whose
domains they had suffered wreck, a chief mighty in stature and in power.
In one of his villages was a pit, six feet deep and as wide as a
hogshead, filled with treasure gathered from Spanish wrecks on adjacent
reefs and keys. The monarch was a priest, too, and a magician, with
power over the elements. Each year he withdrew from the public gaze to
hold converse in secret with supernal or infernal powers; and each year
he sacrificed to his gods one of the Spaniards whom the fortune of the
sea had cast upon his shores. The name of the tribe is preserved in that
of the River Caloosa. In close league with him was the mighty Oathcaqua,
dwelling near Cape Canaveral, who gave his daughter, a maiden of
wondrous beauty, in marriage to his great ally. But, as the bride, with
her bridesmaids, was journeying towards Calos, escorted by a chosen
band, they were assailed by a wild and warlike race, inhabitants of an
island called Sarrope, in the midst of a great lake, who put the
warriors to flight, bore the mai