It is from the Narrative' of the first settlement made in South 

 Carohna that we get the clearest view of the country at that 

 time, in 1552, a party of French Huguenots under the com- 

 mand of Jean Ribault sailed up the coast from the present Flor- 

 ida in search of the river named by Vasquez the Jordan, and, 

 thinking they had found it. renamed it the Port Royal, flere 

 they went ashore "where we found the place as pleasant as 

 was possible, for it was all covered over with mighty high oaks 

 and infinite store of cedars, and with Lentishes growing under- 

 neath them, smelling so sweetly, that the very fragrant odor 

 only made the place seem exceedingly pleasant. " Of a nearby 

 island the Narrative tells us : ' ' On every side there is nothing 

 to be seen but palm trees, and other sorts of trees bearing blos- 

 soms and fruit of very rare shape and very good smell. ' ' Fur- 

 ther up the river they found an island which they called ' ' Isle 

 of Cedars ' ' as they ' 'found nothing but tall cedars. ' ' 



Months later, after Ribault had returned to France and want 

 had overtaken the small colony left behind, it was decided to 

 build a ship in which to sail home. For this the settlers cut 

 pine trees for rosin "out of which they drew a sufficient and 

 reasonable quantity to bray the ve.ssel." They also "gathered 

 a kind of moss that groweth on the tree of this country, to 

 .serve to calk the same withal." 



The disastrous fortunes of this Port Royal colony discouraged 

 French colonization and the next descriptions we have of South 

 Carolina come from the records of English explorers, although 

 the region about Port Royal and St. Helena continued to be 

 visited by the Spaniards. 



'Narrative of Kibault'a whole and true discovery of Terra Florida, as far north as 36 

 degrees, and the founding of the first settlement of French Protestants in Am«riea 

 1562. Reprinted in Courtenay. Wm. A. Genesis of South Carolina. 1907. 



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