University of Virginia Library

21. XX.
IRACANA,
OR THE EDEN OF THE FLORIDIAN.

The disasters which befel his detachment, brought Laudonniere
to his knees. He had now been humbled severely by the
dispensations of Providence—punished for that disregard of the
things most important to the colonization of a new country, which,
in his insane pursuit of the precious metals, had marred his administration.
His misfortunes reminded him of his religion.

“Seeing, therefore, mine hope frustrate on that side, I made
my prayer unto God, and thanked him of his grace which he had
showed unto my poore souldiers which were escaped.”

But his prayers did not detain him long. The necessities of
the colony continued as pressing as ever. “Afterward, I thought
upon new meanes to obtaine victuals, as well for our returne into
France, as to drive out the time untill our embarking.” These
were meditations of considerable difficulty. The petty fields of
the natives, never contemplated with reference to more than a
temporary supply of food;—never planted with reference to providing
for a whole year, were really inadequate to the wants of
such a body of men, unless by grievously distressing their proprietors.

The people of Olata Utina had been moved to rage in all
probability, quite as much because of their grain crops, about to
be torn from them, as with any feeling of indignation in consequence
of the detention of their Paracoussi. In the sacks of corn
which the Frenchmen bore away upon their shoulders, they beheld
the sole provisions upon which, for several months, their
women and children had relied to feed; and their quick imaginations
were goaded to desperation, as they depicted the vivid horrors
of a summer consumed in vain search after crude roots and indigestible
berries, through the forests. No wonder the wild wretches
fought to avert such a danger; as little may we wonder that they
fought successfully. The Frenchmen, compelled to cast down
their sacks of grain, to use their weapons, the red-men soon repossessed
themselves of all their treasure. When Laudonniere
reviewed his harrassed soldiers on their return from this expedition,
“all the mill that he found among his company came but to
two men's burdens.” To attempt to recover the provisions thus
wrested from them, or to revenge themselves for the indignity
and injury they had undergone, were equally out of the question.
The people of the Paracoussi could number their thousands; and,
buried in their deep fortresses of forest, they could defy pursuit.
Laudonniere was compelled to look elsewhere for the resources
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 seen the smokes of another village, named Emoloa.
The Frenchmen, wandering through the woods in search of game,
had alighted suddenly upon these primitive communities. Here
they had been received with gentleness and love. The natives
were lively and benevolent. They had never felt the wrath of

the white man, nor been made to suffer because of his improvidence
and necessities. His thunderbolts had never hurled among
their 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 the season of harvest, and
thither, accordingly, Laudonniere dispatched his boats. A judicious
officer conducted the detachment, and stores of European
merchandize were confided to him for the purposes of traffic. He
was not disappointed in his expectations. His soldiers were
received with open arms; and a “good store of mil,” speaking
comparatively, was readily procured from the abundance of the
Indians.

But, in preparation for the return to France, other and larger
supplies were necessary. The boats were again made ready, and
confided to La Vasseur and D'Erlach. They proceeded to the
river to which the French had given their name of Somme, now
known as the Satilla, but which was then called among the
Indians, the Iracana, after their own beautiful queen. Of this
queen our Frenchmen had frequently been told. She had been
described to them as the fairest creature, in the shape of woman,
that the country had beheld: nor was the region over which
she swayed, regarded with less admiration. This was spoken of
as a sort of terrestrial paradise. Here, the vales were more
lovely; the waters more cool and pellucid than in any other of
the territories of earth. Here, the earth produced more abundantly
than elsewhere; the trees were more stately and magnificent,
the flowers more beautiful and gay, and the vines more
heavily laden with grapes of the most delicious flavor. Sweetest

islets rose along the shore over which the moon seemed to linger
with a greater fondness, and soft breezes played ever in the
capacious forests, always kindling to emotions of pleasure, the
soft beatings of the delighted heart. The influences of scene and
climate were felt for good amongst the people who were represented
at once as the most generous and gentle of all the Floridian
natives. They had no wild passions, and coveted no fierce
delights. Under the sway of a woman, at once young and beautiful,
the daughter of their most favorite monarch, their souls had
become attuned to sympathies which greatly tended to subdue
and to soothe the savage nature. Their lives were spent in sports
and dances. No rebukes or restraints of duty, no sordid cares or
purposes, impaired the dream of youth and rapture which prevailed
everywhere in the hearts of the people. Gay assemblages
were ever to be found among the villages in the forests;
singing their own delights and imploring the stranger to be
happy also. They had a thousand songs and sports of youth and
pleasure, which made life a perpetual round of ever freshening
felicity. Innocent as wild, no eye of the ascetic could rebuke
enjoyments which violated no cherished laws of experience and
thought, and their glad and sprightly dances, in the deep shadows
of the wood, to the lively clatter of Indian gourds and tambourines,
were quite as significant of harmless fancies as of thoughtless lives.
Happy was the lonely voyager, speeding along the coast, in his
frail canoe, when, suddenly darting out from the forests of Iracana,
a slight but lovely creature, with flowing tunic of whit
cotton, stood upon the head land, waving her branch of palm or
myrtle, entreating his approach, and imploring him to delay his
journey, while he shared in the sweet festivities of love and youth,
for a season, upon the shore, — crying with a sweet chant,—

“Love you me not, oh, lonely voyager—love you me not?
Lo! am I not lovely; I who serve the beautiful queen of Iracana?
will you not come to me, 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 and the 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 was commonly won, as was he who, sailing by Scylla and
Charybdis, refused to seal 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 for the unwary, meditating
their destruction. They sought only to share the pleasures
which they themselves enjoyed. The benevolence of that love
which holds its treasure as of little value, unless its delights may
be bestowed on others, was the distinguishing moral in the Indian
Eden of Iracana; and he who came with love, never departed
without a sorrow, such as made him linger as he went, and soon
return, when this were possible, to a region, which, among our
Floridians, realized that period of 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 the frontiers of Iracana, at an auspicious period.
The season of harvest, among all primitive and simple nations,
is commonly a season of great rejoicing. Among a people like
those of Iracana, habitually accustomed to rejoice, it is one in
which delight becomes exultation, and when in the supreme felicity
of good fortune, the happy heart surpasses itself in the extraordinary
expression of its joy. Here were assembled to the
harvest, all the great lords of the surrounding country. Here

was Athoree, the gigantic son of Satouriova, a very Anak,
among the Floridians. Here were Apalou, a famous chieftain,—
Tacadocorou, and many others, whom our Frenchmen had met
and known before;—some of whom indeed, they had known in
fierce conflict, and a strife which had never been healed by any
of the gentle offices of peace.

But Iracana was the special territory of peace. It was not
permitted, among the Floridians, to approach this realm with
angry purpose. Here war and strife were tabooed things,—shut,
out, denied and banished, and peace and love, and rapture, were
alone permitted exercise in abodes which were too grateful to all
parties, to be desecrated by hostile passions. When, therefore,
our Frenchmen, beholding those only with whom they had so
lately fought, were fain to betake themselves to their weapons,
the chiefs themselves, with whom they had done battle, came
forward 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 in Iracana,—nothing but dance and be happy.”

Even had not this assurance sufficed with our Frenchmen, the
charms of the lovely Queen herself, her grace and sweetness, not
unmixed with a dignity which declared her habitual rule, must
have stifled every feeling of distrust in their bosoms, and effectually
exorcised that of war. She came to meet the strangers with
a mingled ease and state, a sweetness and a majesty, which
were inexpressibly attractive. She took a 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 features
with a glow. Rich in hue, yet delicately thin, her lips parted
with a pleasure, as she spoke to them, which no art could simulate.

She bade them welcome, joined their hands with those of
the great warriors by whom she was attended, and led them away
among her damsels, of whom a numerous array were assembled,
all habited in the richest garments of their scanty wardrobes.

The robes of the Queen herself were ample. The skirts of her
dress fell below her knees, a thing very uncommon with the
women of Florida. Over this, she wore a tunic of crimson, which
descended below her hips. A slight cincture embraced, without
confining, her waist. Long strings of sea-shell, of the smallest
size, but of colors and tints the most various and delicate, drooped
across her shoulders, and were strung, in loops and droplets,
to the skirts of her dress and her symar. Similar strings encircled
her head, from which the hair hung free behind, almost to
the ground, a raven-like stream, of the deepest and most glossy
sable. Her form was equally stately and graceful—her carriage
betrayed a 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 her countenance. She led her
guests among the crowd, and soon released La Vasseur to one of
the loveliest girls who came about her. Alphonse D'Erlach she
kept to herself. She was evidently struck with the singular
union of delicacy and youth with sagacity and character, which
declared itself in his features and deportment.

Very soon were all the parties engaged in the mazes of the
Indian dance of Iracana,—a movement which, unlike the walts
of the Spaniards, less stately perhaps, and less imposing—yet requires
all its flexibility and freedom, and possesses all its seductive
and voluptuous attractions. Half the night was consumed
with dancing; then gay parties could be seen gliding into canoes

and darting across the stream to other villages and places of
abode. Anon, might be perceived a silent couple gliding away
to sacred thickets; and with the sound of a mighty conch, which
strangely broke the silence of the forest, the Queen herself retired
with her attendants, having first assigned to certain of her
chiefs the task of providing for the Frenchmen. Of these she
had already shown herself sufficiently heedful and solicitous. Not
sparing of her regards to La Vasseur, she had particularly devoted
herself to D'Erlach, and, while they danced together, if the
truth could be spoken of her simple heart, great had been its
pleasure at those moments, when the spirit of the dance required
that she should yield herself to his grasp, and die away
languidly in his embrace.

“Ah! handsome Frenchman,” she said to her companion,—
“You please me so much.”

His companions were similarly entertained. Captain La Vasseur
was soon satisfied that he too was greatly pleasing to the
fair and lovely savage who had been assigned him; and not one
of the Frenchmen, but had his share of the delights and endearments
which made the business of life in Iracana. The soldiers
had each a fair creature, with whom he waltzed and wandered;
and fond discourse, everywhere in the great shadows of the wood,
between sympathizing spirits, opened a new idea of existence to
the poor Huguenots who, hitherto, had only known the land of
Florida by its privations and its gold. The dusky damsels, alike
sweet and artless, brought back to our poor adventurers precious
recollections of youthful fancies along the banks of the Garonne
and the Loire, and it is not improbable, that, under the excitement
of new emotions, had Laudonniere proposed to transfer La
Caroline to the Satilla, or Somme, instead of May 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.
The sounds of revelry had ceased. All slept, and the
transition from night to day passed, sweetly and insensibly, almost
without the consciousness of the parties. But, with the
sunrise, the great conch sounded in the forest. 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 her slender fingers, without any sense of
shame, had taken possession of his hand, which she pressed at
moments very tenderly. He had already informed her of the
wants and the sufferings of his garrison, and she smiled with a
new feeling of happiness, as she eagerly assured him that his
people should receive abundance. She bent with her own hands
the towering stalks; and, detaching the ears, flung to the ground
a few in all these places, on which it was meant that the heaps
should be accumulated. “Give these to our friends, the Frenchmen,”
she said, indicating with a sweep of the hand, a large tract
of the field, through which they went. D'Erlach felt this liberality.
He squeezed her fingers fondly in return,—saying words
of compliment which, possibly, in her ear, meant something more
than compliment.

Then followed the morning feast; then walks in the woods;
then sports upon the river in their canoes; and snaring the fish
in weirs, in which the Indians were very expert. Evening
brought with it a renewal of the dance, which again continued late

in the night. Again did Alphonse D'Erlach dance with Iracana;
but it was now seen that her eyes saddened with 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 fullest consciousness
of its value, is for ever dreading its loss. The happiness of the
Floridian Eden had been of a sort which never absorbed the
soul. It lacked the intensity of a fervent passion. It was the
life of childhood—a thing of sport and play, of dance and
dream—not that eager and avaricious passion which knows never
content, and is never sure, even when most happy, from the
anxieties and doubts which beset all mortal felicity. Already did
our Queen begin to calculate the hours between the present, and
that which should witness the departure of the pleasant Frenchmen.

“You will go from me,” said she to D'Erlach, as they went
apart from the rest, wandering along the banks of the river and
looking out upon the sea. “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 could he prove insensible to the tender and
fervid interest which she so innocently betrayed in him? He did
not. He was not insensible; and vague fancies were quickening
in his mind as respects the future. He was opposed to the plan
of returning to France. He was for carrying out the purposes of
Coligny, and fulfilling the destinies of the colony. He had

warned Laudonniere against the policy he pursued, had foreseen
all the evils resulting from his unwise counsels, and there was
that in his bosom which urged the glorious results to France, of
a vigorous and just administration of a settlement in the western
hemisphere, in which he was to participate, with his energy and
forethought, without having these perpetually baffled by the imbecility
and folly of an incapable superior. In such an event,
how sweetly did his fancy mingle with his own fortunes those of
the gentle and loving creature who stood beside him. He told
her not his thoughts—they were indeed, fancies, rather than
thoughts—but his arm gently encircled her waist, and while her
head drooped upon her bosom, he pressed her hand with a tender
earnestness, which spoke much more loudly than any language to
her heart.

The hour of separation came at length. Three days had
elapsed in the delights of the Floridian Eden. Our Frenchmen
were compelled to tear themselves away. The objects for which
they came had been gratified. The bounty of the lovely Iracana
had filled with grain their boats. Her subjects had gladly borne
the burdens from the fields to the vessels, while the strangers
revelled with the noble and the lovely. But their revels were
now to end. The garrison at La Caroline, it was felt, waited
with hunger, as well as hope and anxiety for their return, and
they dared to delay no longer. The parting was more difficult
than they themselves had fancied. All had been well entertained,
and all made happy by their entertainment. If Alphonse
D'Erlach had been favored with the sweet attentions of a queen,
Captain La Vasseur had been rendered no less happy by the
smiles of the loveliest among her subjects. He had touched her
heart also, quite as sensibly as had the former that of Iracana.

Similarly fortunate had been their followers. Authority had
ceased to restrain in a region where there was no danger of insubordination,
and our Frenchmen, each in turn, from the sergeant
to the sentinel, had been honored by regards of beauty, such as
made him forgetful, for the time, of precious memories in France.
Nor had these favors, bestowed upon the Frenchmen, provoked
the jealousy of the numerous Indian chieftains who were present,
and who shared in these festivities. It joyed them the rather to
see how frankly the white men could unbend themselves to unwonted
pleasures, throwing aside that jealous state, that suspicious
vigilance, which, hitherto, had distinguished 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 and laughing damsel in his grasp, whirled beside each
other in the mystic maze of the dance.

“I much love these women of Iracana,” said Apalou, as fierce
a warrior in battle, as ever swore by the altars of the Indian
Moloch. “I glad you love them too, like me. Iracana woman
good for too much love! They make great warrior forget his
enemies.”

“Ha!” said one addressing D'Erlach, “You have beautiful
women in your country, like Iracana, the Queen?”

But, we need not pursue these details. The hour of separation
had arrived. Our Frenchmen had brought with them a
variety of commodities grateful to the Indian eye, with which
they designed to traffic; but the bounty of Iracana, which had
anticipated all their wants, had asked for nothing in return. The
treasures of the Frenchmen were accordingly distributed in gifts
among the noble men and women of the place. Some of these

Iracana condescended to take from the hands of Aphon. Her
tears fell upon his offering. She gave him in return two small
mats, woven of the 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 river bank—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 be come.”

“Aphon” felt, at that moment, that he could come without
sorrow. He promised that he would. Perhaps he meant to keep
his promise; but we shall see. The word was given to be
aboard, and the trumpet rang, recalling the soldier who still
lingered in the forest shadows, with some dusky damsel for companion.
All were at length assembled, and with a 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 to
deny herself another last look.

But the Frenchmen were delayed. One of their men was missing.
Where was Louis Bourdon? There was no answer to his
name. The boats were searched, the banks of the river, the
neighboring woods, the fields, the Indian village, and all in vain.
The Frenchmen observed that the natives exhibited no eagerness
in the search. They saw that many faces were clothed with
smiles, when their efforts resulted fruitlessly. They could not
suppose that any harm had befallen the absent soldier. They
could not doubt the innocence of that hospitality, which had
shown itself so fond. They conjectured rightly when they supposed
that Louis Bourdon, a mere youth of twenty, had gone

off with one of the damsels of Iracana, whose seductions he had
found it impossible to withstand. D'Erlach spoke to the Queen
upon the subject. She gave him no encouragement. She professed
to know nothing, and probably did not, and she would
promise nothing. She unhesitatingly declared her belief that he
was in the forest, with some one that “he so much loved:” but
she assured D'Erlach that to hunt them up would be an impossibility.

“Why you not stay with me, Aphon, as your soldier stay
with the woman he so much love? It is good to stay. Iracana
will love you too much more than other woman. Ah! you love
not much the poor Iracana.”

“Nay, Iracana, I love you greatly. I will come to you again.
I find it hard to tear myself away. But my people—”

“Ah! you stay with Iracana, and much love Iracana, and you
have all these people. They will plant for you many fields of
corn; you shall no more want; and we will dance when the
evening comes, and we shall be so happy, 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.
Captain La Vasseur was growing impatient. The search after
Louis Bourdon was abandoned, and the soldiers were again ordered
on board. The anxieties of La Vasseur being now awakened, lest
others of his people should be spirited away. Of this the danger
was considerable. The Frenchman was a more flexible being
than either the Englishman or Spaniard. It was much easier for
him to assimilate with the simple Indian; and our Huguenot
soldiers, who had very much forgotten their religion in their
diseased thirst after gold, now, in the disappointment of the one

appetite were not indifferent to the consolations afforded by a life
of ease and sport, and the charms which addressed them in forms
so persuasive as those of the damsels of Iracana. La Vasseur
began to tremble for his command, as he beheld the reluctance
of his soldiers to depart. He gave the signal hurriedly to
Alphonso D'Erlach, and with another sweet single pressure of the
hand, he left the lovely Queen to her own melancholy musings.
She followed with her eyes the departing boats till they were
clean gone from sight, then buried herself in the deepest thickets
where she might weep in security.

Other eyes than hers pursued the retiring barks of the Frenchmen,
with quite as much anxiety; and long after she had ceased
to see them. On a little headland jutting out upon the river
below, in the shade of innumerable vines and flowers, crouching
in suspense, was the renegade, Louis Bourdon. By his side sat
the dusky damsel who had beguiled him from his duties. While
his comrades danced, he was flying through the thickets. The
nation were, many of them, conscious of his flight; but they 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
father of the woman with whom he fled providing the canoe with
which to transport him beyond the danger of pursuit. Little did
our Frenchmen, as the boats descended, dream who watched them
from the headland beneath which they passed. Many were the
doubts, frequent the changes, in the feelings of the capricious
renegade, as he saw his countrymen approaching him, and felt
that he might soon be separated from them and home forever, by
the ocean walls of the Atlantic. Whether it was that his Indian
beauty detected in his face the fluctuations of his thoughts, and
feared that, on the near approach of the boats, he would change

his purpose and abandon her for his people, cannot be said; but
just then she 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 his mouth; he could scarcely have kept from
crying out to his comrades as the boats drew nigh to the cliff;
but the dusky beauties beneath his gaze, the soft and delicate
form within his embrace, silenced all the rising sympathies of
brotherhood in more ravishing emotions. In a moment their boats
had gone by; in a little while they had disappeared from sight,
and the arms of the Indian woman, wrapped about her captive,
declared her delight and rapture in the triumph which she now
regarded as secure. Louis Bourdon little knew how much he had
escaped, in thus becoming a dweller in the Floridian Eden.