1564, 1565.
FAMINE. WAR. SUCCOR.
While the mutiny was brewing, one La Roche Ferriere had been sent out as
an agent or emissary among the more distant tribes. Sagacious, bold, and
restless, he pushed his way from town to town, and pretended to have
reached the mysterious mountains of Appalache. 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, it was
pretended, 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 Pierre Gambie, 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
the island 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 split his head with a hatchet.
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