Such were the Virginia Indians, a race not at all resembling the savages of other lands; tall in person, vigorous, stoical, enduring pain without a murmur; slow in maturing revenge, but swift to strike; worshiping the lightning and thunder as the flash of the eyes and the hoarse voice of their unseen god; without pity; passionately fond of hunting and war; children of the woods, with all the primitive impulses; loving little, hating inveterately; a strange people, which, on the plains of the West to-day, are not unlike what they were in Virginia nearly three centuries ago. The old chronicles, with the rude pictures, give us their portraits. We may fancy them going to war in their puccoon paint, paddling swiftly in their log canoes on the Tidewater rivers; dancing and yelling at their festivals; creeping stealthily through the woods to attack the English; darting quickly by the shadowy temple of Uttamussac in the woods of the York, and shrinking with terror as the voice of Okee roars in the thunder.

The Emperor Powhatan (his public and official name, his family name being Wahunsonacock) ruled over thirty tribes, 8000 square miles, and 8000 subjects, of whom about 2400 were fighting men. Part of his territories came by conquest, but he inherited the country from where Richmond now stands to Gloucester, though the Chickahominy tribe, about three hundred warriors, disowned his authority. He was a man of ability, both in war and peace; greatly feared by his subjects, and holding the state of a king. At his chief places of residence, Powhatan, below Richmond, Orapax, on the Chickahominy, and Werowocomoco, on the York, he was waited on by his braves and wives, of whom he had a large number; and it is plain from the chronicles

that his will was treated with implicit respect. He was indeed the head and front of the state

a monarch

Majesty James I. in Engwell as by royal descent, On important occasions,

whose jus divinum was much more fully recognized than the jus divinum of his land. He ruled by brains as by might as well as of right. as when going to war, a great council or parliament of the tribes assembled; but the old Emperor seems to have been the soul of these assemblies, and quite at one with his nobles. In theory he was only the first gentleman in his kingdom, but his will was the constitution, and his authority sacred; "when he listed his word was law."

When Smith came to stand before this king of the woods in his court, it was Europe and America brought face to face; civilization and the Old World in physical contact with barbarism and the New.

VII.

POCAHONTAS.

SMITH began his famous voyage toward the South Sea on a bitter December day of 1607. It is not probable that the unknown ocean was in his thoughts at all; life at Jamestown was monotonous, and he and his good companions in the barge would probably meet with adventures. If these were perilous they would still be welcome, for the ardent natures of the time relished peril; and, turning his barge head into the Chickahominy, Smith ascended the stream until the shallows stopped him. He then procured a canoe and some Indian guides, and continued his voyage with only

two companions, leaving the rest of the men behind to await his return.

The result of the canoe voyage was unfortunate in the extreme. Having reached a point in what is now the White Oak Swamp, east of Richmond, - he calls the place Rassaweak, he landed with an Indian guide, was attacked by a band of Indians, and having sunk in a marsh was captured and taken before their chief, Opechancanough, brother of the Emperor Powhatan. The Indians had attacked and killed two of the English left behind, and Smith was now bound to a tree and ordered to be shot to death. A trifle saved his life. He exhibited a small ivory compass which he always carried, and explained by signs as far as possible the properties of the magnetic needle. It is improbable that the Indian chief comprehended this scientific lecture, but he saw the needle through the glass cover and yet could not touch it, which was enough. Smith was released and fed plentifully, and they finally set out with him on a triumphal march through the land of Powhatan. They traversed the New Kent "desert," crossed the Pamunkey, Mattapony, and Rappahannock to the Potomac region, and then, returning on their steps, conducted the prisoner to Werowocomoco, the "Chief Place of Council" of the Emperor Powhatan.

This old Indian capital was in Gloucester, on York River, about twenty-five miles below the present West Point. The exact site is supposed to have been "Shelly," an estate of the Page family, where great banks of oyster shells and the curious ruin, "Powhatan's chimney," seem to show that the Emperor held his court. Smith was brought before him as a distinguished captive, and his fate seemed sealed. He had

killed two of his Indian assailants in the fight on the Chickahominy, and it was tolerably certain that his enemies would now beat out his brains. His description of the scene, and especially of the Indian Emperor, is picturesque. Powhatan was a tall and gaunt old man with a 66 sour look," and sat enthroned on a couch, covered with mats, in front of a fire. a robe of raccoon skins, which he an imperial present to the King of him sat or reclined, his girl-wives. dian women, nearly nude, stained red with puccoon and decorated with shell necklaces, were ranged against the walls of the wigwam, and the dusky warriors were drawn up in two lines to the right and left of the Emperor.

He was wrapped in aftewards offered as England, and beside The rest of the In

The prisoner was brought in before this imposing assemblage, and at first there seemed a possibility that he might escape with his life. The "Queen of Appomattock" brought him water in a wooden bowl to wash his hands; another a bunch of feathers to use as a towel; and then "a feast was spread for him after their best barbarous fashion." But his fate had been decided upon. Two stones were brought in and laid on the ground in front of the Emperor, and what followed is succinctly related in the old narrative. Smith was seized, dragged to the stones, his head forced down on one of them, and clubs were raised to beat out his brains, when Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, interposed and saved him. The description of the scene is concise. The Indian girl, a child of twelve or thirteen, ran to him, "got his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death;" whereupon the Emperor relented and ordered his life to be spared.1

1 The questions connected with this incident will be examined elsewhere.

A kind Providence had thus preserved the soldier, but he was to remain with Powhatan to make "bells, beads, and copper," for Pocahontas. It was a very curious fate for the hardy campaigner of the Turkish wars, to be buried in the Virginia woods, the fashioner of toys for an Indian girl.

Pocahontas was the favorite daughter of the Emperor, and Smith describes her as the most attractive of the Indian maids; "for features, countenance, and expression, she much exceeded any of the rest." Her figure was probably slight. "Of so great a spirit, however her stature," was the description of her afterwards, when she had grown up and visited London. Her dress was a robe of doeskin lined with down from the breast of the wood pigeon, and she wore coral bracelets on wrists and ankles, and a white plume in her hair, the badge of royal blood. It must have been a very interesting woodland picture the soldier, with tanned face and sweeping mustache, shaping trinkets for the small slip of Virginia royalty in her plumes and bracelets. A few words of the chronicle give us a glimpse of it, and the curtain falls.

The soldier remained with Powhatan until early in the next January (1608). They had sworn eternal friendship, and the Emperor offered to adopt him and give him the "country of Capahowsick" for a dukedom. It is probable that Smith received this proposal with enthusiasm, but he expressed a strong desire to pay a visit to Jamestown, and the Emperor finally permitted him to depart. He traveled with an escort and reached Jamestown in safety. His Indian guard were supplied with presents for Powhatan and his family, a cannon shot was fired into the ice-laden trees for their