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III.

ville ordered the village to be burnt and the standing CHAP. corn to be destroyed. Not long after this action of inconsiderate revenge, the ships, having landed the 1585. Aug colony, sailed for England; a rich Spanish prize, made 25. by Grenville on the return voyage, secured him a courteous welcome as he entered the harbor of Plymouth. The transport ships of the colony were at the same time privateers.1

3.

The employments of Lane and his colonists, after the departure of Sir Richard Grenville, could be none other than to explore the country; and in a letter, which he wrote while his impressions were yet fresh, he expressed himself in language of enthusiastic ad- Sept. miration. "It is the goodliest soil under the cope of heaven; the most pleasing territory of the world; the continent is of a huge and unknown greatness, and very well peopled and towned, though savagely. The climate is so wholesome, that we have not one sick, since we touched the land. If Virginia had but horses and kine, and were inhabited with English, no realm in Christendom were comparable to it.""

The keenest observer was Hariot; and he was often employed in dealing with "the natural inhabitants." He carefully examined the productions of the country, those which would furnish commodities for commerce, and those which were in esteem among the natives. He observed the culture of tobacco; accustomed himself to its use, and was a firm believer in its healing virtues. The culture of maize, and the extraordinary productiveness of that grain, especially attracted his admiration; and the tuberous roots of the potato, when boiled, were found to be very good food. The inhab

1 The Voyage, in Hakluyt, ni. 2 Lane, in Hakluyt, iii. 311. 307-310.

CHAP. itants are described as too feeble to inspire terror, III. clothed in mantles and aprons of deer-skins; having no 1585. weapons but wooden swords and bows of witch-hazel

with arrows of reeds; no armor but targets of bark and sticks wickered together with thread. Their towns were small; the largest containing but thirty dwellings. The walls of the houses were made of bark, fastened to stakes; and sometimes consisted of poles fixed upright, one by another, and at the top bent over and fastened; as arbors are sometimes made in gardens. But the great peculiarity of the Indians consisted in the want of political connection. A single town often constituted a government; a collection of ten or twenty wigwams was an independent state. The greatest chief in the whole country could not muster more than seven or eight hundred fighting men. The dialect of each government seemed a language by itself.

The country which Hariot explored was on the boundary of the Algonquin race; where the Lenni Lenape tribes melted into the widely-differing nations of the south. The wars among themselves rarely led them to the open battle-field; they were accustomed rather to sudden surprises at daybreak or by moonlight, to ambushes and the subtle devices of cunning falsehood. Destitute of the arts, they yet displayed excellency of wit in all which they attempted. Nor were they entirely ignorant of religion; and to the credulity of fetichism they joined an undeveloped conception of the unity of the Divine Power. It is natural to the human mind to desire immortality; the natives of Carolina believed in continued existence after death, and in retributive justice. The mathematical instruments, the burning-glass, guns, clocks, and the use of letters, seemed the works of gods, rather than of men;

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and the English were reverenced as the pupils and CHAP. favorites of Heaven. In every town which Hariot entered, he displayed the Bible, and explained its 1585 truths; the Indians revered the volume rather than its doctrines; and, with a fond superstition, they embraced the book, kissed it, and held it to their breasts and heads, as if it had been an amulet. As the colonists enjoyed uniform health, and had no women with them, there were some among the Indians who imagined the English were not born of woman, and therefore not mortal; that they were men of an old generation, risen to immortality. The terrors of fire-arms the natives could neither comprehend nor resist; every sickness which now prevailed among them, was attributed to wounds from invisible bullets, discharged by unseen agents, with whom the air was supposed to be peopled. They prophesied, that "there were more of the English generation yet to come, to kill theirs and take their places;" and some believed, that the purpose of extermination was already matured, and its execution begun.

Was it strange, then, that the natives desired to be 1586 delivered from the presence of guests by whom they feared to be supplanted? The colonists were mad with the passion for gold; and a wily savage invented, Mar respecting the River Roanoke and its banks, extravagant tales, which nothing but cupidity could have credited. The river, it was said, gushed forth from a rock, so near the Pacific Ocean, that the surge of the sea sometimes dashed into its fountain; its banks were inhabited by a nation skilled in the art of refining the rich ore in which the country abounded. The walls of the city were described as glittering from the abun

1 Hariot, in Hakluyt, ii. 324-340.