Pioneers of the Old South, page 139

Pioneers of the Old South, page 139 by Mary Johnston

140

e the surrender of Cornwallis and his army hard by the resting-place of Alexander Spotswood. Colonial Virginia lies behind us. The era of revolution and statehood beckons us on.

CHAPTER XVI.

GEORGIA

Below Charleston in South Carolina, below Cape Fear, below Port Royal, a great river called the Savannah poured into the sea. Below the Savannah, past the Ogeechee, sailing south between the sandy islands and the main, ships came to the mouth of the river Altamaha. Thus far was Carolina. But below Altamaha the coast and the country inland became debatable, probably Florida and Spanish, liable at any rate to be claimed as such, and certainly open to attack from Spanish St. Augustine.

Here lay a stretch of seacoast and country within hailing distance of semi-tropical lands. It was low and sandy, with innumerable slow-flowing watercourses, creeks, and inlets from the sea. The back country, running up to hills and even mountains stuffed with ores, was not known -- though indeed Spanish adventurers had wandered there and mined for gold. But the lowlands were warm and dense with trees and wild life. The Huguenot Ribault, making report of this region years and years before, called it "a fayre coast stretching of a great length, covered with an infinite number of high and fayre trees," and he described the land as the "fairest, fruitfullest, and pleasantest of all the world, abounding in hony, venison, wilde fowle, forests, woods of all sorts, Palm-trees, Cypresse and Cedars, Bayes ye highest and greatest; with also the fayrest vines in all the world . . . . And the sight of the faire medows is a pleasure not able to be expressed with tongue; full of Hernes, Curlues, Bitters, Mallards, Egrepths, Woodcocks, and all other kind of small birds; with Harts, Hindes, Buckes, wilde Swine, and all other kindes of wilde beastes, as we perceived well, both by their footing there and . . . their crie and roaring in the night."* This is the country of the liveoak an

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