96 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
In the verbal relation, reported by Hakluyt, of “ Nicholas Burgoignon, alias 
Holy,” who spent six years “in Florida” prior to 1586, Burgoignon states 
that “the Spaniards, entring 50. leagues up Saint Helena, found Indians 
wearing golde rings at their nostrels and eares. They found also Oxen, 
but lesse than ours.” * The St. Helena here mentioned was in the present 
State of South Carolina, and must have been either the Combahee or the 
Edisto River, though most probably the latter, the name St. Helena being 
still retained for the bay at the mouths of these rivers. It hence seems very 
probable that the locality referred to was the Abbeville district of South 
Carolina, where buffaloes at that time doubtless existed. 
Governor Oglethorpe, in his “New and Accurate Account of the Provinces 
of South Carolina and Georgia,’ published in 1733, makes the following 
single reference to the buffalo: “The wild beasts are deer, elks, bears, 
wolves, buffaloes, wild boars, and abundance of hares and rabbits: they 
have also a catamountain, or small leopard; but this is not the dangerous 
species of the Kast Indies.” ¢ 
Francis Moore, writing in 1744, referring to the absence of the buffalo 
from St. Simon’s Island, adds that “there are large herds there upon the 
Main.” £ : 
Governor Glen, in his “ Description of Carolina,” published in 1761, enu- 
merates “ Buffaloes” in his list of the “ Wild Beasts, etc., of the Forest.” § 
Drayton, writing in 1802, also enumerates the buffalo as one of the animals 
formerly existing in South Carolina. He says, “The buffalo and cat-a-mount 
are entirely exterminated on the eastern side of our mountains.” || 
While the former occurrence of the buffalo in the “upper parts” of the 
Carolinas “near the mountains” is a well-established fact of history, its 
absence at the same time from the low country near the coast seems 
equally certain. As early as 1562, Jean Ribault (or Ribaut) landed at Port 
Royal, and explored to some distance into the interior J) without meeting 
with buffaloes, as did also Hilton,** in 1663, and numerous other travellers 
* Hakluyt, Voyages, etc., Vol. III, p. 433. 
t Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, Vol. I, p. 51. 
{ A Voyage to Georgia, etc, p. 55. 
§ Description of Carolina, p. 68. 
|| Drayton (John), View of South Carolina, p. 88. 
‘] See Landonniére’s narrative in Hakluyt’s Voyages, Vol. III, pp. 367-497. 
** Hilton (William), A Relation of a Discovery lately made on the Coast of Florida, ete., London, 
1664 (Force’s Coll. Hist. Tracts, Vol. IV, No. 2, p. 8). 
