As they proceeded, the girl made a vigorous resistance, and set up violent cries of rage and terror. She clawed with her nails, struck with her hands, and struggled to free herself. At last, wearied with the attempt to transport this virago, the Frenchmen let her go, keeping the boy as a less troublesome, though less valued prize. The girl bounded away into the forest like a deer, and was soon lost in the shadows of the trees. The _Dauphine_ was now somewhere near the mouth of the beautiful Penobscot River, in Maine. It was the end of June and the breath from the hemlock forests along the shore was filled with the scent of the balsam bough. Verrazano would have lingered longer in this lovely country, but the object of the voyage had now been accomplished; over seven hundred leagues of the new world had been explored, and the French corsair had held sufficient communication with the native redskins to form some idea of their state and character. The bow of the _Dauphine_ was therefore turned towards France; she made a safe passage, propelled by favorable winds, and, in the month of July, 1524, about five and a half months after her departure, Verrazano, the corsair, landed at Dieppe. The Indian boy was well, and he was taken ashore: but what happened to him afterwards is not known. The adventurous explorer now wrote a letter to the King of France telling of the land which he had discovered and of the Indians and wild beasts which he had seen. To Francis the First, the French Monarch, he offered a vast province in the temperate latitude, on which France might well have expended her enterprise, and which would have repaid her efforts a thousand fold. But, alas! France was then in dreadful straits, for she was near annihilation from her recent struggles with Germany. The King was a prisoner in the hands of the Emperor; his army had been dispersed; his treasury was exhausted. Thus the vast and fruitful land of America was left to the English and the Dutch to explore, to colonize, and to subdue. Could the rough, old corsair have seen in dreams the beach of Atlantic City, four centuries later, with its board walk, its towering hotels, its thousands of bathers, and its wheeled chairs, he would have, indeed, been surprised, for the old fellow was the first European who had seen the surf on the shelving sands of New Jersey. FRANCISCO PIZARRO: CONQUEROR OF PERU. (1475-1538)