SMITH'S LIFE SAVED BY POCAHONTAS.

45

and on to the Rappahannock, and still further north, to the Potomac. At last they reached the residence of the great chief Opechaucanough, at Pamunkey. Here for several days, they exhausted all the power of their religious incantations in gaining, from earth or heaven, some revelations of the terrible mystery that hung around their prisoner. They could not tell what fate might be in store for them. He might have been sent by the departed, from their invisible homes, a beneficent or direful messenger-they could not tell. But so strong a hold had Smith by this time gained on their veneration, they treated him with as much hospitality and reverence as if he had indeed been an embassador from the Great Spirit.

Powhatan.-Smith's fate was at last to be determined by a chieftain whose name would always have been enchanting enough, had it been left to the simple records of authentic history. Powhatan held sway over one of the fairest, and what was afterwards to become one of the most classic regions of the continent. Those same fields were to witness the crowning struggle of the American Revolution; those shining rivers were to be crossed by the glittering battalions of France and England; the defeat of Cornwallis, and the laurels won by Lafayette, were to be mentioned in the same breath with which our children utter the familiar names of the heroes of the Revolution.

Powhatan held his court, from which there was no earthly appeal. He was himself arrayed in all the splendor of his savage royalty. Near him sat his chiefs in council, and a dusky cloud of savage warriors and squaws, all decked out as if for a festival, hovered around the scene of judgment. Terror dictated the verdict: this strange and awful being must die. As he was motioned to bend his neck for the fatal tomahawk, Pocahontas, the young daughter of Powhatan, sprung to his breast, and clung to it with the agony of pity, devotion and terror.'

The ferocity of the band was softened. The tomahawks of the execu tioners slowly came to the ground; and there, with one arm still unlocked from the embrace, she plead with his judges. She appealed with uplifted eyes to the Great Spirit above them; in tenderer tones she told her father how the pale face could make hatchets for him, and strings of beads and rattles for his favorite child. Judgment was suspended, and in silence the awe-struck band at last turned their eyes away from this more than mortal being, on whom a higher power had stamped the seal of sacredness. It was the decision that he should not only cease to be a prisoner, but be adopted as a friend and an equal into the councils of the nation. Thus was the last hope of the colony saved by the man whom Virginia to this day talls her father.

The released captive did not at once hasten to Jamestown. He cultivated the acquaintance, and sealed the friendship of Powhatan, and made his charming daughter a favorite companion. Whatever trinkets he had with

The girl was of tenne or twelve years old, which not spirit was the only nonpareil of the cntry.—Smith's only for feature, countenance, and expression much Virginia. exceeded any of the rest of his people, but for wit and

46

SMITH'S EXPLORATIONS OF THE CHESAPEAKE.

him were given to decorate the beautiful maiden, and his tenderness to he won the heart of the father. He studied the language and the manners, and comprehended the spirit of the natives. He hoped he had linked them in lasting friendship with his countrymen. When he returned to the fortmaster now, beyond a doubt, for he had been the saviour of the colonyevery few days the friendly Indians appeared, and Pocahontas always came with them. They brought baskets of corn and other presents for their palefaced friends.'

On returning from his wanderings and captivity, Smith found his colony reduced to one hundred and forty men, and, in their helplessness, many of them had determined to put to sea in the little pinnace. Their design was soon discovered and defeated. They were disappointed in their second attempt; and in the third and last, Smith crushed their scheme only by a desperation which would have cost any other man his life. And so, with the hope of relief from England, he sustained the last energies of the colony by the mingled firmness and humanity of his great soul.

Newport at last came, bringing with him little of service except the needed supplies, without which they might have continued to subsist. The hundred and twenty emigrants he brought were 'chiefly vagabond gentlemen, and goldsmiths, who, thinking they had discovered in some of the glittering grains of the soil around Jamestown evidences of gold, there was now no talk, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold.' This is the record Smith gives us. Newport was a good sailor, but nothing more. He was seized with the gold fever, and contrary to the arguments of Smith, and the intelligent assurances of Powhatan, he went wild with the fancy that the James river flowed in from the neighboring Pacific, and that a cargo of Jamestown ore, with the gloss of his own descriptions, would cover him with wealth and glory. He idled away three or four months, and finally set sail for England with a freight of worthless earth.'

Summer of 1608.-But nothing diverted Smith from the achievement of some practical results in the broad field he had entered. He did not endanger the authority he swayed by any unnecessary severity, but showed what lenity he could to the follies of the Council, and the vices of the colonists. He could now prosecute, with some hope of success, his explorations of the great Bay of the Chesapeake, and the many rivers that flowed into it from the northern and western hills. He tells us that, attended only by a few companions, he made two voyages in an open boat, in which, by careful estimate, his oars had carried him as many miles as a ship would sail in a voyage to England. He

1 Fancy became the first historian and latest inter preter of these strange occurrences. As early as 1608, an account of them appeared in 'The True Relation, etc.,' which contained much that was incredible. But the authentic history of the rescue of Smith by Pocahontas, appeared by authority in 1617, that being the date of Smith's 'Relation to Queen Anne.' Many attempts have been made to cast doubt over the whole story; but it is as well established as any other fact in the history of merica. Iconoclasts abound in every

clime and period. They are first cousins to the Bourbons of the human family, who haunt chiefly the graveyards, forgetting all that it is useful to know, and learning nothing that is worth acquiring. Nature has given this class a prodigious capacity for doubting everything good, and believing in everything evil. But they have been obliged to leave this bright little spot in Virginia's annals still green on her fair record, and the pretty story of Pocahontas will live forever in the pages of authentic history.

SMITH'S GOVERNMENT OF THE COLONY.

47

went as far as the mouth of the Susquehanna, where he made the acquaintance of the Mohawks, 'who dwelt upon a great water, and had many boats, and many men, and made war upon all the world.' They had, indeed, made a terrible impression upon the less warlike Algonquins of the south; for the famous Mohawks, then in the prowess of their primitive strength, had dominated as far as they pleased over the wide region that stretched from the northern lakes to the south of the Ohio and its tributary rivers. Fleets of their canoes had also been seen on the waters of the Chesapeake.

To these shore and inland explorations by Smith over unknown waters, belongs every element of romance and utility. He may well have been struck with the majesty of the broad Potomac, which spreads seven miles as it opens to the sea. Tracing his course on his own map, guided by his descriptions, we find him slowly pulling against the stream under the shades of Mt. Vernon, where Washington's ashes now repose; and passing up the bend around the heights of Arlington, he reached the falls above Georgetown. But he was not satisfied with knowing merely the courses of these rivers, and the character of their banks. He penetrated the regions around him in all directions. Wherever he met Indian tribes, they were prepared from previous rumors to receive him with deference and kindness, or he won their favor by the manliness and benevolence of his character. The beneficial consequences that followed these well-directed exertions, were to be felt long after that generation had disappeared.

This time, on his return to Jamestown, he was better received. The colonists had learned to prize the wisdom and thoroughness of his judgment; feeling their own incompetence, the members of the Council elected him. President. He could now invoke the authority of law in the administration of affairs. Things soon put on a new face, and fortune seemed to favor them from the ocean. Newport's flag once more came in sight, with another expedition, bringing supplies, with seventy emigrants. Among them were two females, who had been induced to risk their fortunes, or tempt the fickle goddess, by displaying their charms in fresh fields.

The colonial Council in England had not yet learned, however, what class of men was needed in the new plantation. In addition to what he had hitherto requested, Smith wrote once more, and in plainer terms: 'When you send again,' he said, 'I entreat you rather send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers-up of trees' roots, well-provided, than a thousand of such as we have.' old Anglo-Saxon speaks out, for it was nothing less than that glorious quality, with which Smith was so munificently gifted, that ever dealt against the hardships of a wilderness life any telling blows in the settlement of this continent.

Here the

1609.-Smith's Authority.-None now were left to dispute it, and he became in fact as well as name, the ruler of the colony. In dividing up the hours, he enforced six for work, from all hands; and we are not surprised to learn, that under such discipline, even accomplished gentlemen soon become