savages, of which he contrived to avail himself in getting a letter to Jamestown. In this letter, which was written on the leaf of an old table-book, he wrote his wishes to the people at the fort; described his condition exactly, instructed them to do all that they could to terrify the messengers, who were in fact spies, and upon whose report would depend their decision whether to assault the fort or not-a measure greatly urged by the King of Paspahegh; who sagaciously insisted upon the moment the great werowance of the whites was in their power, and his people in consternation, as being particularly suited to the attempt. The letter also counselled certain things to be sent him, of which an inventory was given. His messengers-three in number-took the letter in weather so bitter and cold, with frost and snow, (6 as in reason were impossible by any naked man to be endured."

But they returned in three days, having faithfully exe cuted their commission. The reports which they brought of the terrors by which the fort was environed, confirming the dreadful accounts of mines, great guns, and engines of such dread, that no proper names for them could be found, determined them to forego the attempt upon the colony; and then it was that the triumphal progress was resumed. But before this could take place, and, indeed, before Smith's dispatches had been written, an incident. occurred which had nearly rendered unnecessary any further negotiation.

It appears that, soon after he had reached his present resting-place, he was summoned to the assistance of one of the men whom he had wounded with his pistols. Looked upon as a conqueror-as a great medicine, at least —it was taken for granted that he could heal as well as hurt; and nothing seemed to them more natural and proper, than that he should do so where he himself had inflict

ed the injury. But Smith found the wounded man in the last extremity, and declared frankly he could do nothing for him. Something, he said, might be done, could he procure a certain medicine which he had at Jamestown ; and a requisition for this medicine was actually made in the letter which was sent. But the savage dying soon after, his father set upon our adventurer to revenge his death; and would have slain him with his sword, but for the timely interposition of the guard. Baffled in this way, he endeavored to effect his object by shooting at him in his prison, but was again arrested in his designs before any injury had been done. So intense was this wild passion of revenge, which the practice among the savages made justifiable, that, to defeat the purposes of his fury, they were compelled to remove the object of his pursuit and hate to other places of security. This, indeed, is given as one of the reasons for resuming the triumphal progress.

The route of the procession was a circuitous one. The real object seems to have been to gratify the curiosity of as many townships as possible; and possibly the vanity of his captors, before taking him to Werowomoco, where Powhatan at this time resided. First, they carried him among the people who dwelt on the Youghtanund, or Pamunkee river. From the Youghtanund they led him to the Mattaponies, the Piankatanks, the Nantaughtacunds or the Rappahannock, and the Nominies, on the Potomac. river. These rivers being passed, they showed him to numerous other tribes, with names equally barbarous. He was then brought back to the habitation of Opechancanough, at Pamunkee, where a wild and singular species of incantation was destined to take place; the object of which is stated to be to ascertain by magical orgies what had been and were his real purposes towards them. In other words, the priests and conjurors of the nation were

disposed to show themselves necessary to its safety, and to avail themselves of a novel circumstance to strengther those vulgar superstitions by which they lived. For three days they conjured him by the rudest sort of ceremonials. Smeared with oil and paint, begrimed with black and red garbed in the skins of wild beasts, and shaking their gourd rattles over head, they danced around him, with shrieks and howlings, from the rising to the setting of the sun;then fed themselves and him, for neither had been suffered to partake of food while the day lasted; but they took especial care not to eat with him-a circumstance which still serves to keep up in our hero's mind a lively anxiety with regard to their cannibal appetites. Three days were thus spent in these and similar orgies; the details of which could not enlighten, and would scarcely please the reader. These over, he was removed to the dwelling of Opitchapam,* the brother of Powhatan, who afterwards succeeded to the empire. Here he was still well treated, that is, well fed; his imagination, as he tells us in doggerel verse -in which he not unfrequently deals-conjuring up "hydeous dreames," in his waking moments, of "wondrous shapes," "strange bodies," "huge of growth,"

"And of stupendous makes;"

the effects probably of over feeding, an inactive condition of body, and a mind full of active apprehensions. But his spirits do not fail him, nor his courage. His aspect is still such as to command the respect of the savages. They seek to persuade and to intimidate him. They offer him "life, liberty, land, and women," if he will only show them how to get possession of the fort at Jamestown They exult in the possession of a bag of gunpowder, the qualities of which they know; and which, regarding it as

* Beverley calls him Itopatin.

a seed, they proposed to sow, in hope of future b which to retort the explosive missiles of the de-face. Smith loses no opportunity to impress them with a sens of the superiority of the whites; of their wondrous resources, and unmentionable powers. He does not undeceive them with regard to the gunpowder, and we may suppose that they sow the crop at the due season in spring. He is equal to all their arts. They bring him one of his pistols, requiring him to discharge it, in order, as he perceives, that they may learn its use. But his subtlety equals theirs. He adroitly breaks the cock of the weapon, which he succeeds in persuading them is accidentally done. They can make nothing of him, and he, if he makes nothing of them, at all events maintains his manhood in their eyes, and assumes the guise of cheerfulness, though grief sits heavy at his heart. At length, after a long delay, which was probably not without its object, the captive is conducted to Werowocomoco,* the residence of Powhatan, and into the presence of that despotic chieftain.

• Called Meronocomoco in the "Discoveries and Accidents," vil L., c. ii., p. 162, of the octavo edition printed at Richmond, Va.

CHAPTER VI.

We have now reached a period in the career of our hero the events of which are much more intimately associated with his memory in the minds of men than those of any other in the whole of his long eventful history. Though not more remarkable, perhaps, than many others--not more imposing or impressive than his three single combats with the Turkish champions before Regall-than his captivity and escape from the bondage of the Bashaw of Bogall, bearing with him the blood of that cruel despot, and the tender affections of his gentle sister-yet there is something in the first appearance of the sweet forest damsel, Pocahontas, upon the scene in which Smith is the hero, and nearly the victim, which commends this part of his story, more than any other, to the sympathies and remembrances of our people. It is as the prisoner of Powhatan, the great Indian Emperor of Virginia—as the captive doomed to perish in the hands of savages by a sudden and a cruel death, and rescued at the last moment by the unexpected interposition of the young and tender-hearted child of the fierce old monarch-that our hero fixes the attention of the hearer when his name is but mentioned. We have reached that point in his career upon which the eye inevitably fastens, heedless of every other, when he becomes the subject ;—that exquisite episode in the history of the new world, which, appealing equally to the affections and the imagination, has never lost the charnı of its original loveliness and freshness, even though a thousand iterations have made it the most familiar of all