XX.
IRACANA,
OR THE EDEN OF THE FLORIDIAN.
The disasters which befel his detachment, brought Laudonniere tohis knees. He had now been humbled severely by the dispensations ofProvidence--punished for that disregard of the things most important tothe colonization of a new country, which, in his insane pursuit ofthe precious metals, had marred his administration. His misfortunesreminded him of his religion.
"Seeing, therefore, mine hope frustrate on that side, I made my prayerunto God, and thanked him of his grace which he had showed unto my pooresouldiers which were escaped."
But his prayers did not detain him long. The necessities of the colonycontinued as pressing as ever. "Afterward, I thought upon new meanes toobtaine victuals, as well for our returne into France, as to drive outthe time untill our embarking." Those were meditations of considerabledifficulty. The petty fields of the natives, never contemplated withreference to more than a temporary supply of food;--never planted withreference to providing for a whole year, were really inadequate to thewants of such a body of men, unless by grievously distressing theirproprietors. The people of Olata Utina had been moved to rage in allprobability, quite as much because of their grain crops, about to betorn from them, as with any feeling of indignation in consequence of thedetention of their Paracoussi. In the sacks of corn which the Frenchmenbore away upon their shoulders, they beheld the sole provisions uponwhich, for several months, their women and children had relied tofeed; and their quick imaginations were goaded to desperation, as theydepicted the vivid horrors of a summer consumed in vain search aftercrude roots and indigestible berries, through the forests. No wonder thewild wretches fought to avert such a danger; as little may we wonderthat they fought successfully. The Frenchmen, compelled to cast downtheir sacks of grain, to use their weapons, the red-men soon repossessedthemselves of all their treasure. When Laudonniere reviewed hisharrassed soldiers on their return from this expedition, "all the millthat he found among his company came but to two men's burdens." Toattempt to recover the provisions thus wrested from them, or to revengethemselves for the indignity and injury they had undergone, were equallyout of the question. The people of the Paracoussi could number theirthousands; and, buried in their deep fortresses of forest, they coulddefy pursuit. Laudonniere was compelled to look elsewhere for theresources which should keep his company from want.
Two leagues distant from La Caroline, on the opposite side of May River,stood the Indian village of Saravahi. Not far from this might be seenthe smokes of another village, named Emoloa. The Frenchmen, wanderingthrough the woods in search of game, had alighted suddenly upon theseprimitive communities. Here they had been received with gentleness andlove. The natives were lively and benevolent. They had never feltthe wrath of the white man, nor been made to suffer because of hisimprovidence and necessities. His thunderbolts had never hurled amongtheir columns, and mown them down as with a fiery scythe from heaven.The Frenchmen did not fail to remark that they were provident tribes,with corn-fields much more ample than were common among the Indians.These, they now concluded, must be covered with golden grain, in theseason of harvest, and thither, accordingly, Laudonniere dispatchedhis boats. A judicious officer conducted the detachment, and stores ofEuropean merchandize were confided to him for the purposes of traffic.He was not disappointed in his expectations. His soldiers were receivedwith open arms; and a "good store of mil," speaking comparatively, wasreadily procured from the abundance of the Indians.
But, in preparation for the return to France, other and larger supplieswere necessary. The boats were again made ready, and confided to LaVasseur and D'Erlach. They proceeded to the river to which the Frenchhad given their name of Somme, now known as the Satilla, but which wasthen called among the Indians, the Iracana, after their own beautifulqueen. Of this queen our Frenchmen had frequently been told. Shehad been described to them as the fairest creature, in the shape ofwoman, that the country had beheld: nor was the region over which sheswayed, regarded with less admiration. This was spoken of as a sort ofterrestrial paradise. Here, the vales were more lovely; the waters morecool and pellucid than in any other of the territories of earth. Here,the earth produced more abundantly than elsewhere; the trees were morestately and magnificent, the flowers more beautiful and gay, and thevines more heavily laden with grapes of the most delicious flavor.Sweetest islets rose along the shore over which the moon seemed tolinger with a greater fondness, and soft breezes played ever in thecapacious forests, always kindling to emotions of pleasure, the softbeatings of the delighted heart. The influences of scene and climatewere felt for good amongst the people who were represented at once asthe most generous and gentle of all the Floridian natives. They hadno wild passions, and coveted no fierce delights. Under the sway of awoman, at once young and beautiful, the daughter of their most favoritemonarch, their souls had become attuned to sympathies which greatlytended to subdue and to soothe the savage nature. Their lives were spentin sports and dances. No rebukes or restraints of duty, no sordid caresor purposes, impaired the dream of youth and rapture which prevailedeverywhere in the hearts of the people. Gay assemblages were ever to befound among the villages in the forests; singing their own delights andimploring the stranger to be happy also. They had a thousand songs andsports of youth and pleasure, which made life a perpetual round of everfreshening felicity. Innocent as wild, no eye of the ascetic couldrebuke enjoyments which violated no cherished laws of experience andthought, and their glad and sprightly dances, in the deep shadows of thewood, to the lively clatter of Indian gourds and tambourines, were quiteas significant of harmless fancies as of thoughtless lives. Happy wasthe lonely voyager, speeding along the coast, in his frail canoe, when,suddenly darting out from the forests of Iracana, a slight but lovelycreature, with flowing tunic of white cotton, stood upon the head land,waving her branch of palm or myrtle, entreating his approach, andimploring him to delay his journey, while he shared in the sweetfestivities of love and youth, for a season, upon the shore,--cryingwith a sweet chant,--
"Love you me not, oh, lonely voyager--love you me not? Lo! am I notlovely; I who serve the beautiful queen of Iracana? will you not come tome, for a while!--come, hide the canoe among the reeds, along the shore,and make merry with the damsels of Iracana. I give to thee the palm andthe myrtle, in token of a welcome of peace and love. Come hither, oh!lonely voyager, and be happy for a season!"
And seldom were these persuasions unavailing. The lonely voyager wascommonly won, as was he who, sailing by Scylla and Charybdis, refused toseal his ears with wax against the song of the Syren. But our charmers,along the banks of the Satilla, entreated to no evil, laid no snares forthe unwary, meditating their destruction. They sought only to share thepleasures which they themselves enjoyed. The benevolence of that lovewhich holds its treasure as of little value, unless its delights may bebestowed on others, was the distinguishing moral in the Indian Eden ofIracana; and he who came with love, never departed without a sorrow,such as made him linger as he went, and soon return, when this werepossible, to a region, which, among our Floridians, realized that periodof the Classic Fable, which has always been designated, par excellence,as the "age of gold."
Our Frenchmen, under the conduct of La Vasseur and D'Erlach, reached thefrontiers of Iracana, at an auspicious period. The season of harvest,among all primitive and simple nations, is commonly a season of greatrejoicing. Among a people like those of Iracana, habitually accustomedto rejoice, it is one in which delight becomes exultation, and when inthe supreme felicity of good fortune, the happy heart surpasses itselfin the extraordinary expression of its joy. Here were assembled tothe harvest, all the great lords of the surrounding country. Herewas Athoree, the gigantic son of Satouriova, a very Anak, among theFloridians. Here were Apalou, a famous chieftain,--Tacadocorou, andmany others, whom our Frenchmen had met and known before;--some of whomindeed, they had known in fierce conflict, and a strife which had neverbeen healed by any of the gentle offices of peace.
But I
racana was the special territory of peace. It was not permitted,among the Floridians, to approach this realm with angry purpose. Herewar and strife were tabooed things,--shut out, denied and banished, andpeace and love, and rapture, were alone permitted exercise in abodeswhich were too grateful to all parties, to be desecrated by hostilepassions. When, therefore, our Frenchmen, beholding those only withwhom they had so lately fought, were fain to betake themselves to theirweapons, the chiefs themselves, with whom they had done battle, cameforward to embrace them, with open arms.
"Brothers, all--brothers here, in Iracana;" was the common speech."Be happy here, brothers, no fight, no scalp, nothing but love inIracana,--nothing but dance and be happy."
Even had not this assurance sufficed with our Frenchmen, the charms ofthe lovely Queen herself, her grace and sweetness, not unmixed witha dignity which declared her habitual rule, must have stifled everyfeeling of distrust in their bosoms, and effectually exorcised that ofwar. She came to meet the strangers with a mingled ease and state, asweetness and a majesty, which were inexpressibly attractive. She tooka hand of La Vasseur and of D'Erlach, with each of her own. A bright,happy smile lightened in her eye, and warmed her slightly dusky featureswith a glow. Rich in hue, yet delicately thin, her lips parted with apleasure, as she spoke to them, which no art could simulate. She badethem welcome, joined their hands with those of the great warriors bywhom she was attended, and led them away among her damsels, of whom anumerous array were assembled, all habited in the richest garments oftheir scanty wardrobes.
The robes of the Queen herself were ample. The skirts of her dress fellbelow her knees, a thing very uncommon with the women of Florida. Overthis, she wore a tunic of crimson, which descended below her hips. Aslight cincture embraced, without confining, her waist. Long stringsof sea-shell, of the smallest size, but of colors and tints the mostvarious and delicate, drooped across her shoulders, and were strung, inloops and droplets, to the skirts of her dress and her symar. Similarstrings encircled her head, from which the hair hung free behind, almostto the ground, a raven-like stream, of the deepest and most glossysable. Her form was equally stately and graceful--her carriage betrayeda freedom, which was at once native and the fruit of habitual exercise.Nothing could have been more gracious than the sweetness of her welcome;nothing more utterly unshadowed than the sunshine which beamed in hercountenance. She led her guests among the crowd, and soon released LaVasseur to one of the loveliest girls who came about her. AlphonseD'Erlach she kept to herself. She was evidently struck with the singularunion of delicacy and youth with sagacity and character, which declareditself in his features and deportment.
Very soon were all the parties engaged in the mazes of the Indian danceof Iracana,--a movement which, unlike the waltz of the Spaniards, lessstately perhaps, and less imposing--yet requires all its flexibility andfreedom, and possesses all its seductive and voluptuous attractions.Half the night was consumed with dancing; then gay parties could be seengliding into canoes and darting across the stream to other villages andplaces of abode. Anon, might be perceived a silent couple glidingaway to sacred thickets; and with the sound of a mighty conch, whichstrangely broke the silence of the forest, the Queen herself retiredwith her attendants, having first assigned to certain of her chiefs thetask of providing for the Frenchmen. Of these she had already shownherself sufficiently heedful and solicitous. Not sparing of her regardsto La Vasseur, she had particularly devoted herself to D'Erlach, and,while they danced together, if the truth could be spoken of her simpleheart, great had been its pleasure at those moments, when the spirit ofthe dance required that she should yield herself to his grasp, and dieaway languidly in his embrace.
"Ah! handsome Frenchman," she said to her companion,--"You please me somuch."
His companions were similarly entertained. Captain La Vasseur was soonsatisfied that he too was greatly pleasing to the fair and lovely savagewho had been assigned him; and not one of the Frenchmen, but had hisshare of the delights and endearments which made the business of life inIracana. The soldiers had each a fair creature, with whom he waltzed andwandered; and fond discourse, everywhere in the great shadows of thewood, between sympathizing spirits, opened a new idea of existence tothe poor Huguenots who, hitherto, had only known the land of Florida, byits privations and its gold. The dusky damsels, alike sweet and artless,brought back to our poor adventurers precious recollections of youthfulfancies along the banks of the Garonne and the Loire, and it is notimprobable, that, under the excitement of new emotions, had Laudonniereproposed to transfer La Caroline to the Satilla, or Somme, instead ofMay River, they might have been ready to waive, for a season at least,their impatient desire to return to France.
Night was at length subdued to silence on the banks of the Satilla. Thesounds of revelry had ceased. All slept, and the transition from nightto day passed, sweetly and insensibly, almost without the consciousnessof the parties. But, with the sunrise, the great conch sounded in theforest. The Eden of the Floridian did not imply a life of mere repose.The people were gathered to their harvesting, and the labors of the day,under the auspices of a gracious rule, were made to seem a pleasure.Hand in hand, the Queen Iracana, with her maidens, and her guests,followed to the maize fields. Already had she found D'Erlach, and herslender fingers, without any sense of shame, had taken possession ofhis hand, which she pressed at moments very tenderly. He had alreadyinformed her of the wants and the sufferings of his garrison, and shesmiled with a new feeling of happiness, as she eagerly assured him thathis people should receive abundance. She bent with her own hands thetowering stalks; and, detaching the ears, flung to the ground a fewin all these places, on which it was meant that the heaps should beaccumulated. "Give these to our friends, the Frenchmen," she said,indicating with a sweep of the hand, a large tract of the field, throughwhich they went. D'Erlach felt this liberality. He squeezed her fingersfondly in return,--saying words of compliment which, possibly, in herear, meant something more than compliment.
Then followed the morning feast; then walks in the woods; then sportsupon the river in their canoes; and snaring the fish in weirs, in whichthe Indians were very expert. Evening brought with it a renewal of thedance, which again continued late in the night. Again did AlphonseD'Erlach dance with Iracana; but it was now seen that her eyes saddenedwith the overfulness of her heart. Love is not so much a joy as a care.It is so vast a treasure, that the heart, possessed of the fullestconsciousness of its value, is for ever dreading its loss. The happinessof the Floridian Eden had been of a sort which never absorbed thesoul. It lacked the intensity of a fervent passion. It was the life ofchildhood--a thing of sport and play, of dance and dream--not that eagerand avaricious passion which knows never content, and is never sure,even when most happy, from the anxieties and doubts which beset allmortal felicity. Already did our Queen begin to calculate the hoursbetween the present, and that which should witness the departure of thepleasant Frenchmen.
"You will go from me," said she to D'Erlach, as they went apart from therest, wandering along the banks of the river and looking out upon thesea. "You will go from me, and I shall never see you any more."
"I will come again, noble Queen, believe me," was the assurance.
"Ah! come soon," she said, "come soon, for you please me very much,_Aphon_."
Such was the soft Indian corruption of his christened name. No doubt,she too gave pleasure to 'Aphon.' How could it be otherwise? How couldhe prove insensible to the tender and fervid interest which she soinnocently betrayed in him? He did not. He was not insensible; and vaguefancies were quickening in his mind as respects the future. He wasopposed to the plan of returning to France. He was for carrying out thepurposes of Coligny, and fulfilling the destinies of the colony. He hadwarned Laudonniere against the policy he pursued, had foreseen all theevils resulting from his unwise counsels, and there was that in hisbosom which urged the glorious results to France, of a vigorous and justadministration of a settlement in the western hemisphere, in which hewas to participate, with hi
s energy and forethought, without havingthese perpetually baffled by the imbecility and folly of an incapablesuperior. In such an event, how sweetly did his fancy mingle with hisown fortunes those of the gentle and loving creature who stood besidehim. He told her not his thoughts--they were indeed, fancies, ratherthan thoughts--but his arm gently encircled her waist, and whileher head drooped upon her bosom, he pressed her hand with a tenderearnestness, which spoke much more loudly than any language to herheart.
The hour of separation came at length. Three days had elapsed in thedelights of the Floridian Eden. Our Frenchmen were compelled to tearthemselves away. The objects for which they came had been gratified. Thebounty of the lovely Iracana had filled with grain their boats. Hersubjects had gladly borne the burdens from the fields to the vessels,while the strangers revelled with the noble and the lovely. But theirrevels were now to end. The garrison at La Caroline, it was felt, waitedwith hunger, as well as hope and anxiety for their return, and theydared to delay no longer. The parting was more difficult than theythemselves had fancied. All had been well entertained, and all madehappy by their entertainment. If Alphonse D'Erlach had been favored withthe sweet attentions of a queen, Captain La Vasseur had been renderedno less happy by the smiles of the loveliest among her subjects. He hadtouched her heart also, quite as sensibly as had the former that ofIracana. Similarly fortunate had been their followers. Authorityhad ceased to restrain in a region where there was no danger ofinsubordination, and our Frenchmen, each in turn, from the sergeant tothe sentinel, had been honored by regards of beauty, such as made himforgetful, for the time, of precious memories in France. Nor had thesefavors, bestowed upon the Frenchmen, provoked the jealousy of thenumerous Indian chieftains who were present, and who shared in thesefestivities. It joyed them the rather to see how frankly the white mencould unbend themselves to unwonted pleasures, throwing aside thatjealous state, that suspicious vigilance, which, hitherto, haddistinguished their bearing in all their intercourse with the Indians.
"Women of Iracana too sweet," said the gigantic son of Satouriova,Athore, to Captain La Vasseur, as the parties, each with a light andlaughing damsel in his grasp, whirled beside each other in the mysticmaze of the dance.
"I much love these women of Iracana," said Apalou, as fierce a warriorin battle, as ever swore by the altars of the Indian Moloch. "I glad youlove them too, like me. Iracana woman good for too much love! They makegreat warrior forget his enemies."
"Ha!" said one addressing D'Erlach, "You have beautiful women in yourcountry, like Iracana, the Queen?"
But, we need not pursue these details. The hour of separation hadarrived. Our Frenchmen had brought with them a variety of commoditiesgrateful to the Indian eye, with which they designed to traffic; but thebounty of Iracana, which had anticipated all their wants, had askedfor nothing in return. The treasures of the Frenchmen were accordinglydistributed in gifts among the noble men and women of the place. Some ofthese Iracana condescended to take from the hands of Aphon. Her tearsfell upon his offering. She gave him in return two small mats, woven ofthe finer straws of the country, with her own hands--wrought, indeed,while D'Erlach sat beside her in the shade of a great oak by the riverbank--and "so artificially wrought," in the language of the chronicle,"as it was impossible to make it better." The poor Queen had few words--
"You will come to me, _Aphon_--you will? you will? I too much want you!Come soon, _Aphon_. Iracana will dance never no more till _Aphon_ become."
"_Aphon_" felt, at that moment, that he could come without sorrow. Hepromised that he would. Perhaps he meant to keep his promise; but weshall see. The word was given to be aboard, and the trumpet rang,recalling the soldier who still lingered in the forest shadows, withsome dusky damsel for companion. All were at length assembled, and witha last squeeze of her hand, D'Erlach took leave of his sorrowful queen.She turned away into the woods, but soon came forth again, unable todeny herself another last look.
But the Frenchmen were delayed. One of their men was missing. Where wasLouis Bourdon? There was no answer to his name. The boats were searched,the banks of the river, the neighboring woods, the fields, the Indianvillage, and all in vain. The Frenchmen observed that the nativesexhibited no eagerness in the search. They saw that many faces wereclothed with smiles, when their efforts resulted fruitlessly. They couldnot suppose that any harm had befallen the absent soldier. They couldnot doubt the innocence of that hospitality, which had shown itself sofond. They conjectured rightly when they supposed that Louis Bourdon, amere youth of twenty, had gone off with one of the damsels of Iracana,whose seductions he had found it impossible to withstand. D'Erlachspoke to the Queen upon the subject. She gave him no encouragement. Sheprofessed to know nothing, and probably did not, and she would promisenothing. She unhesitatingly declared her belief that he was in theforest, with some one that "he so much loved:" but she assured D'Erlachthat to hunt them up would be an impossibility.
"Why you not stay with me, Aphon, as your soldier stay with the woman heso much love? It is good to stay. Iracana will love you too much morethan other woman. Ah! you love not much the poor Iracana."
"Nay, Iracana, I love you greatly. I will come to you again. I find ithard to tear myself away. But my people--"
"Ah! you stay with Iracana, and much love Iracana, and you have allthese people. They will plant for you many fields of corn; you shall nomore want; and we will dance when the evening comes, and we shall be sohappy, Aphon and Iracana, to live together; Aphon the great Paracoussi,and Iracana to be Queen no more."
It was not easy to resist these pleadings. But time pressed. CaptainLa Vasseur was growing impatient. The search after Louis Bourdon wasabandoned, and the soldiers were again ordered on board. The anxietiesof La Vasseur being now awakened, lest others of his people should bespirited away. Of this the danger was considerable. The Frenchman was amore flexible being than either the Englishman or Spaniard. It was mucheasier for him to assimilate with the simple Indian; and our Huguenotsoldiers, who had very much forgotten their religion in their diseasedthirst after gold, now, in the disappointment of the one appetite werenot indifferent to the consolations afforded by a life of ease andsport, and the charms which addressed them in forms so persuasive asthose of the damsels of Iracana. La Vasseur began to tremble for hiscommand, as he beheld the reluctance of his soldiers to depart. He gavethe signal hurriedly to Alphonso D'Erlach, and with another sweet singlepressure of the hand, he left the lovely Queen to her own melancholymusings. She followed with her eyes the departing boats till they wereclean gone from sight, then buried herself in the deepest thickets whereshe might weep in security.
Other eyes than hers pursued the retiring barks of the Frenchmen, withquite as much anxiety; and long after she had ceased to see them. Ona little headland jutting out upon the river below, in the shade ofinnumerable vines and flowers, crouching in suspense, was the renegade,Louis Bourdon. By his side sat the dusky damsel who had beguiled himfrom his duties. While his comrades danced, he was flying through thethickets. The nation were, many of them, conscious of his flight; butthey held his offence to be venial, and they encouraged him to proceed.They lent him help in crossing the river, at a point below; the fatherof the woman with whom he fled providing the canoe with which totransport him beyond the danger of pursuit. Little did our Frenchmen, asthe boats descended, dream who watched them from the headland beneathwhich they passed. Many were the doubts, frequent the changes, inthe feelings of the capricious renegade, as he saw his countrymenapproaching him, and felt that he might soon be separated from them andhome forever, by the ocean walls of the Atlantic. Whether it was thathis Indian beauty detected in his face the fluctuations of his thoughts,and feared that, on the near approach of the boats, he would change hispurpose and abandon her for his people, cannot be said; but just thenshe wound herself about within his arms, and looked up in his face,while her falling hair enmeshed his hands, and contributed, perhaps,still more firmly to ensnare his affections. His heart had been in hismouth; he could scarcely
have kept from crying out to his comrades asthe boats drew nigh to the cliff; but the dusky beauties beneath hisgaze, the soft and delicate form within his embrace, silenced all therising sympathies of brotherhood in more ravishing emotions. In a momenttheir boats had gone by; in a little while they had disappeared fromsight, and the arms of the Indian woman, wrapped about her captive,declared her delight and rapture in the triumph which she now regardedas secure. Louis Bourdon little knew how much he had escaped, in thusbecoming a dweller in the Floridian Eden.