But Ribaut and his followers, just escaped from the dull prison of their ships, were intent on admiring the wild scenes around them. Never had they known a fairer May-Day. The quaint old narrative is exuberant with delight. The quiet air, the warm sun, woods fresh with young verdure, meadows bright with flowers; the palm, the cypress, the pine, the magnolia; the grazing deer; herons, curlews, bitterns, woodcock, and unknown water-fowl that waded in the ripple of the beach; cedars bearded from crown to root with long gray moss; huge oaks smothering in the serpent folds of enormous grape-vines: such were the objects that greeted them in their roamings, till their new-found land seemed "the fairest, fruitfullest, and pleasantest of al the world." They found a tree covered with caterpillars, and hereupon the ancient black-letter says,--"Also there be Silke wormes in meruielous number, a great deale fairer and better then be our silk wormes. To bee short, it is a thing vnspeakable to consider the thinges that bee seene there, and shalbe founde more and more in this incomperable lande." Above all, it was plain to their excited fancy that the country was rich in gold and silver, turquoises and pearls. One of the latter, "as great as an Acorne at ye least," hung from the neck of an Indian who stood near their boats as they reembarked. They gathered, too, from the signs of their savage visitors, that the wonderful land of Cibola, with its seven cities and its untold riches, was distant but twenty days' journey by water. In truth, it was on the Gila, two thousand miles off, and its wealth a fable. They named the river the River of May,--it is now the St. John's,--and on its southern shore, near its mouth, planted a stone pillar graven with the arms of France. Then, once more embarked, they held their course northward, happy in that benign decree which locks from mortal eyes the secrets of the future. Next they anchored near Fernandina, and to a neighboring river, probably the St. Mary's, gave the name of the Seine. Here, as morning broke on the fresh, moist meadows hung with mists, and on broad reaches of inland waters which seemed like lakes, they were tempted to land again, and soon "espied an innumerable number of footesteps of great Hartes and Hindes of a wonderfull greatnesse, the steppes being all fresh and new, and it seemeth that the people doe nourish them like tame Cattell." By two or three weeks of exploration they seem to have gained a clear idea of this rich semi-aquatic region. Ribaut describes it as "a countrie full of hauens riuers and Ilands of such fruitfulnes, as cannot with tongue be expressed." Slowly moving northward, they named each river, or inlet supposed to be a river, after the streams of France,--the Loire, the Charente, the Garonne, the Gironde. At length, they reached a scene made glorious in after-years. Opening betwixt flat and sandy shores, they saw a commodious haven, and named it Port Royal.