om he calls the king, a robe of
blue cloth, worked in yellow with the regal fleur-de-lis.

But Ribaut and his followers, just escaped from the dull prison of their
ships, were intent on admiring the wild scenes around them. Never had
they known a fairer May-day. The quaint old narrative is exuberant with
delight. The tranquil air, the warm sun, woods fresh with young verdure,
meadows bright with flowers; the palm, the cypress, the pine, the
magnolia; the grazing deer; herons, curlews, bitterns, woodcock, and
unknown water-fowl that waded in the ripple of the beach; cedars bearded
from crown to root with long, gray moss; huge oaks smothering in the
folds of enormous grapevines;--such were the objects that greeted them
in their roamings, till their new-discovered land seemed "the fairest,
fruitfullest, and pleasantest of al the world."

They found a tree covered with caterpillars, and hereupon the ancient
black-letter says: "Also there be Silke wormes in meruielous number, a
great deale fairer and better then be our silk wormes. To bee short, it
is a thing vnspeakable to consider the thinges that bee seene there, and
shalbe founde more and more in this incomperable lande." [9]

Above all, it was plain to their excited fancy that the country was rich
in gold and silver, turquoises and pearls. One of these last, "as great
as an Acorne at ye least," hung from the neck of an Indian who stood
near their boats as they re-embarked. They gathered, too, from the signs
of their savage visitors, that the wonderful land of Cibola, with its
seven cities and its untold riches, was distant but twenty days' journey
by water. In truth, it was two thousand miles westward, and its wealth a
fable.

They named the river the River of May. It is now the St. John's. "And
on the next morning," says Ribault, "we returned to land againe,
accompanied with the Captaines, Gentlemen, and Souldiers, and others of
our small troope, carrying with us a Pillour or columne of harde stone,
our king's armes graved therein, to plant and set the same in the
enterie of the Porte; and being come thither we espied on the south
syde of the River a place very fitte for that purpose upon a little
hill compassed with Cypres, Bayes, Paulmes, and other trees, with sweete
smelling and pleasant shrubbes." Here they set the column, and then,
again embarking, held their course northward, happy in that benign
decree which locks from mortal eyes the secrets of the future.