filled with wonder at it, and in their turn performed a sort of adoration, holding their hands up to the sun, and chanting a wild unearthly song. They then embraced Captain Smith, adoring him in the like manner, apparently looking upon him as some celestial visitant, and overwhelming him with a profusion of presents and abject homage.

The highest mountain seen by the voyagers to the northward they named Peregrine's Mount; and Willoughby River derived its name from Smith's native town. At the extreme limits of discovery crosses were carved in the bark of trees, or brass crosses were left. The tribes on the Patuxent were found very tractable, and more civil than any others. On the banks of the picturesque Rappahannock, Smith and his party were kindly treated by the Moraughtacunds; and here they met with Mosco, one of the Wighcocomocoes, who was remarkable for a bushy black beard, whereas the natives in general had little or none. He proved to be of great service to the English in exploring the Rappahannock. Mr. Richard Fetherstone, a gentleman of the company, died during this part of the voyage, and was buried on the sequestered banks of this river, where a bay was named after him. The river was explored to the falls, (near Fredericksburg,) where a skirmish took place with the Rappahannocks.

Smith next explored the Pianketank, where the inhabitants. were, for the most part, absent on a hunting excursion, only a few women, children, and old men being left to tend the corn. Returning thence the barge encountered a tremendous thunderstorm in Gosnold's Bay, and running before the wind, the voyagers could only catch fitful glimpses of the land, by the flashes of lightning, which saved them from dashing to pieces on the shore, and directed them to Point Comfort. They next visited Chesapeake, now Elizabeth River, (on which Norfolk is situated,) six or seven miles from the mouth of which they came upon two or three cultivated patches and some cabins. After this they sailed seven or eight miles up the Nansemond, and found its banks consisting mainly of oyster-shells. Skirmishing here with the Chesapeakes and Nansemonds, Smith procured as much corn as he could carry away. September the 7th, 1608, the party arrived at Jamestown, after an absence of upwards of

three months, and found some of the colonists recovered, others still sick, many dead, Ratcliffe, the late president, under arrest for mutiny, the harvest gathered, but the stock of provisions damaged by rain.

During that summer, Smith, with a few men, in a small barge, in his several voyages of discovery traversed a distance of not less than three thousand miles.* He had been at Jamestown only three days in three months, and had, during this interval, explored the whole of Chesapeake Bay and of the country lying on its shores, and made a map of them.

In the year 1607 the Plymouth Company, under the direction of Lord Chief Justice Popham, dispatched a vessel to inspect their territory of North Virginia. That vessel being captured by the Spaniards, Sir John Popham, at his own expense, sent out another, which, having returned with a favorable report of the country, he was enabled to equip an expedition for the purpose of effecting a settlement there. Under the command of his brother, Henry Popham, and of Raleigh Gilbert, a nephew of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a hundred emigrants, embarking May, 1607, in two vessels, repaired to North Virginia, and seated themselves at the mouth of the River Sagahadock, where they erected Fort St. George. However, after enduring a great deal of sickness and hardship, and losing several of their number, including their president, Henry Popham, and hearing by a supply-vessel of the death of their chief patrons, Sir John Popham, and Sir John Gilbert, (brother of Raleigh Gilbert,) they gladly abandoned the colony, and returned to England in the spring of 1608.

It was in this year that Henry Hudson, an Englishman, employed by the Dutch East India Company, after entering the Chesapeake, and remarking the infant settlement of the English, discovered the beautiful river which still retains the name of that distinguished navigator. The Dutch afterwards erected near its mouth, and on the Island of Manhattan, the fort and cabins of New Amsterdam, the germ of New York.

Smith had hitherto declined, but now consented, September, 1608, to undertake the office of president. Ratcliffe was under arrest for mutiny; and the building of the fine house which he

* Smith, i. 191.

had commenced for himself in the woods, was discontinued. The church was repaired, the storehouse newly covered, magazines for supplies erected, the fort reduced to a pentagon figure, the watch renewed, troops trained; and the whole company mustered every Saturday in the plain by the west bulwark, called "Smithfield." There, sometimes, more than a hundred dark-eyed and dark-haired tawny Indians would stand in amazement to see a file of soldiers batter a tree, where a target was set up to shoot at.

Newport arrived with a second supply, and brought out also presents for Powhatan, a basin and ewer, bedstead and suit of scarlet clothes. Newport, upon this voyage, had procured a private commission in which he stood pledged to perform one of three impossibilities; for he engaged not to return to England without either a lump of gold, a certainty of the South Sea, or one of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colonists. Newport brought also orders to discover the Manakin (originally Monacan) country, and a barge constructed so as to be taken to pieces, which they were to carry beyond the falls, so as to convey them down by some river running westward to the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. Vasco Nunez, in 1513, crossing the Isthmus of Darien, from the summit of a mountain discovered, beyond the other side of the continent, an ocean, which, from the direction in which he saw it, took the name of the "South Sea."

The cost of this last supply brought out by Newport was two thousand pounds, and the company ordered that the vessels should be sent back freighted with cargoes of corresponding value, and threatened, in case of a failure, that the colonists should be left in Virginia as banished men. It appears that the Virginia Company had been deeply incensed by a letter received by Lord Salisbury, (Sir Robert Cecil,) Secretary of State, reporting that the planters intended to divide the country among themselves. It is altogether improbable that they had conceived any design of appropriating a country which so few of them were willing to cultivate, and from which so many of them were anxious to escape. The folly of the instructions was only surpassed by the inhumanity of the threat, and this folly and inhumanity were justly exposed by Smith's letter in reply.*

*Stith, 82; Smith, 200.

Newport brought over with him Captains Peter Wynne and Richard Waldo, two veteran soldiers and valiant gentlemen; Francis West, brother of Lord Delaware; Raleigh Crashaw; Thomas Forest with Mrs. Forest, and Anne Burras, her maid; the first English women that landed at Jamestown.* Some Poles and Germans were sent out to make pitch, tar, glass, soap, ashes, and erect mills. Waldo and Wynne were admitted into the council; and Ratcliffe was restored to his seat.

canoe.

The time appointed for Powhatan's coronation now drawing near, Smith, accompanied by Captain Waldo, and three others, went overland to a point on the Pamaunkee (York) River, opposite Werowocomoco, to which they crossed over in an Indian Upon reaching Werowocomoco, Powhatan being found absent, was sent for, and, in the mean time, Smith and his comrades were being entertained by Pocahontas and her companions. They made a fire in an open field, and Smith being seated on a mat before it, presently a hideous noise and shrieking being heard in the adjoining woods, the English snatched up their arms, and seized two or three aged Indians; but Pocahontas immediately came, and protested to Smith that he might slay her if any surprise was intended, and he was quickly satisfied that his apprehensions were groundless. Then thirty young women emerged from the woods, all naked, save a cincture of green leaves, their bodies being painted; Pocahontas wearing on her head a beautiful pair of buck's horns, an otter's skin at her girdle and another on her arm; a quiver hung on her shoulder, and she held a bow and arrow in her hand. Of the other nymphs, one held a sword, another a club, a third a pot-stick, with the antlers of the deer on their heads, and a variety of other savage ornaments. Bursting from the forest, like so many fiends, with unearthly shrieks, they circled around the fire singing and dancing, and thus continued for an hour, when they again retired to the woods. Returning, they invited Smith to their habitations, where, as soon as he entered, they all crowded around, hanging about him with cries of "Love you not me? love you not me?" They then feasted their guest; some serving, others singing and dancing, till at last, with blazing torches of light-wood, they escorted him to his lodging.

On the next day, Powhatan having arrived, Smith informed him of the presents that had been sent out for him; restored to him Namontack, who had been taken to England, and invited the chief to visit Jamestown to accept the presents, and with Newport's aid to revenge himself upon his enemies, the Monacans. Powhatan, in reply, refused to visit Jamestown, saying that he, too, was a king; but he consented to wait eight days to receive presents; as for the Monacans, he was able to avenge his grievances himself. In regard to the salt water beyond the mountains, of which Smith had spoken, Powhatan denied that there was any such, and drew lines of those regions on the ground. Smith returned to Jamestown, and the presents being sent round to Werowocomoco by water, near a hundred miles, Newport and Smith, with fifty men, proceeded thither by the direct route across the neck of land that separates the James from the York.

All being assembled at Werowocomoco, the ensuing day was set for the coronation, when the presents were delivered to Powhatan-a basin, ewer, bed, and furniture ready set up. A scarlet cloak and suit of apparel were with difficulty put upon him, Namontack, meanwhile, insisting that it would not hurt him. Still more strenuous efforts were found necessary to make him kneel to receive the crown, till, at last, by dint of urgent persuasions, and pressing hard upon his shoulders, he was induced, reluctantly, to stoop a little, when three of the English placed the crown upon his head. At an appointed signal a volley of musketry was fired from the boats, and Powhatan started up from his seat in alarm, from which, however, he was in a few moments relieved. As if, by way of befitting satire upon so ridiculous a ceremony, Powhatan graciously presented his old moccasins and mantle to Newport, and some corn; but refused to allow him any guides except Namontack. The English having purchased, in the town, a small additional supply of corn, left Werowocomoco, and returned to Jamestown.

Shortly afterwards Newport, contrary to Smith's advice, undertook to explore the Monacan country, on the borders of the upper James River, with one hundred and twenty picked men, commanded by Captain Waldo, Lieutenant Percy, Captain Wynne, Mr. West, and Mr. Scrivener. Smith, with eighty or