At the end of that time a tattered little vessel reached Bordeaux, and Philip landed on the soil of Franc.

He had a strange story to tell.

The ship had been caught up by a current which had borne it north for the space of fifteen days till landfall was made on the coast of what we now call South Carolina.

There it had been beached in an estuary, while the crew adventured inland.

The land was rich enough, but the tribes were not the gentle race of Battista's imagining.