With the co-operation of the Indians under their chief Saturiba he captured Fort San Mateo in the spring of 1568, and on the spot where the garrison of Fort Caroline had been executed, he hanged his Spanish prisoners, inscribing on a tablet of pine the words, " I do this not as unto Spaniards but as to traitors, robbers and murderers."
The practice was long afterwards adopted of designating the Olympiad, or period of four years, by the name of the victor in the contests of the stadium, and of inscribing his name in the gymnasium of Olympia.
The same may be said of the numerous silly stories told of his life, such as that of his procuring a free passage to Paris by inscribing packets "Poison for the king," and so forth.
In the East the custom which has prevailed for centuries, and which is a practice at the present day, of using the seal as a stamp wherewith to print its device in ink or pigment in authentication of a document is parallel to our western habit of inscribing a signature for the same purpose.
As early as the fourteenth century B.C. the ancient Chinese were inscribing oracle bones with pictures that depicted phenomena that occurred naturally in the universe such as night and day.