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Show 292 TJU; J.ti..Y AND 1'1H: TOTE~!. and met with repulse, retired rapidly to other farorite places of cOncealment to renew the conflict as it continued to advance. lly this time, the whole body of tho Frenchmen had become engaged in the fight. The force under Ottigny, following tho example of that led by D'Erlach, had succccdc<l in prCssing forward, though not without loss, while making great h:woo with tho red-men. These people fought, never men more bravely; and, but for the happy thought, that of destroying their arrows as fast as they fell, it is probable that the detachment had never reached La Caroline. They hovered thus about the march of the Frenchmen all the day, encouraging each other with shouts of vengeance and delight, and sending shaft upon shaft, with an aim, which, l1ad they not been too greatly sensible of tho danger of the ar~ qucbu.w1 to come sufficiently nigh, would have been always fatal. Yet well did tho Sa\·ago succeed, so long as they remained uointoxicated by their rage, in dodging the aim of the weapon. As Laudonniere writes-" All the while they had their eye and foot so quieke and roadie, that as soone as ever they saw the harqucbuse raised to the cheeke, so soon were they on the ground, and eftsoone to answer with their howes, and to flie their way, if by chance they perceived that \VO were about to take them." This conflict lasted from nine o'clock in tho morning until night. lt only ceased when tho darkness separated tho combatants. E\•en then, but for the deficiency of their arrows, they probably would not have withdrawn from the field. It was Jato in tho night when tho Frenchmen reached their boats, weary and exhausted, their grain wrested from them, their hostages rescued, and twenty-four of their number killed and wounded. The Floridians had shown themselves warriors of equal spirit and capacity. 1l'ho determined exclusion of their Pa.racoussi from C.APTIVI"fY OF TilE GRE.AT I'.ARACOlJSSJ. 293 counsels which it was feared that he would dishonor, their manly rJsistancc to the white invaders, their scornful ridicule of their necessities, tl1cir proud defiance of thci.r power, and the fierce nnd unrelenting hostility with which they had chased their adversaries, remind u.s irresistibly of the degradation of Montezuma by his subjects, their prolonged warfare with tho Spaniards, their sleepless hostility, and that bloody struggle which first drove them over the causeways of Tenochtit\an. Tho inferior state and wealth of the Paracoussi, Olata. Ouva.c Utina., constitutes no such sufficient clement of difference, as to lessen the force of tho parallel between himself and people, and those of the Atzcc sovereign. |