On their first landing at Savannah, some of the people from South Carolina endeavored to discourage them by saying that the Spaniards would shoot them as they stood upon the ground where they contemplated erecting their homes. "Why then," said the Highlanders in reply, "we will beat them out of their fort and shall have houses ready built to live in." The spot designated for their town is located twenty miles northwest from St. Simons and ten above Frederica, and situated on the mainland, close to a branch of the Alatamaha river, on a bluff twenty feet high, then surrounded on all sides with woods. The soil is a brackish sand. Formerly Fort King George, garrisoned by an independent company, stood within a mile and a half of the new town, but had been abandoned and destroyed on account of a want of supplies and communication with Carolina. The village was called New Inverness, in honor of the city they had left in Scotland; while the surrounding district was named Darien, on account of the settlement attempted on the Isthmus of Darien, in 1698-1701. Under the direction of Hugh MacKay, who proved himself to be an excellent officer and a man of executive ability, by the middle of February they had constructed a fort consisting of two bastions and two half bastions, which was so strong that forty men could maintain it against three hundred, and on it placed four pieces, which, afterwards was so enlarged as to demand twelve cannon; built a guardhouse, storehouse, a chapel, and huts for the people. One of the men dying, the rest joined and built a house for the widow. In the meantime Oglethorpe had sailed from London on board the Symonds, accompanied by the London Merchant, with additional emigrants, and arrived in the Tybee Road a short time after the Highlanders had left. He had never met them, and desiring to understand their ways and to make as favorable an impression on them as possible, he retained Captain Dunbar to go with him to the Highlanders and to instruct him fully in their customs. On February 22d he left St. Simons and rowing up the Alatamaha after three hours, reached the Highland settlement. Upon seeing the boat approaching, the Highlanders marched out to meet him, and made a most manly appearance in their plaids, with claymores, targets and fire-arms. Captain MacKay invited Oglethorpe to lie in his tent, where there was a bed with sheets--a rarity as yet in that part of the world. He excused himself, choosing to lie at the guard-fire, wrapped in his plaid, for he had on the Highland garb. Captain MacKay and the other gentlemen did the same, though the night was cold.