Conquest, gold, and military occupation had alone been their
aims. Not a rod of ground had been stirred with the spade. Their stores
were consumed, and the expected supplies had not come. The Indians, too,
were hostile. Satouriona hated them as allies of his enemies; and his
tribesmen, robbed and maltreated by the lawless soldiers, exulted in
their miseries. Yet in these, their dark and subtle neighbors, was their
only hope.
May-day came, the third anniversary of the day when Ribaut and his
companions, full of delighted anticipation, had first explored the
flowery borders of the St. John's. The contrast was deplorable; for
within the precinct of Fort Caroline a homesick, squalid band, dejected
and worn, dragged their shrunken limbs about the sun-scorched area, or
lay stretched in listless wretchedness under the shade of the barracks.
Some were digging roots in the forest, or gathering a kind of sorrel
upon the meadows. If they had had any skill in hunting and fishing, the
river and the woods would have supplied their needs; but in this point,
as in others, they were lamentably unfit for the work they had taken in
hand. "Our miserie," says Laudonniere, "was so great that one was found
that gathered up all the fish-bones that he could finde, which he dried
and beate into powder to make bread thereof.
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