soul was extinguished, like the body, at death. To this the priests were an exception. The One Alone called Kiwassa was their friend. When they died they went "beyond the mountains toward the setting of the sun," and there, with plenty of tobacco to smoke, and plumes on their heads, and bodies painted with puccoon, they enjoyed a happy immortality.

It was a grim faith the human soul groping in thick darkness; shrinking from the lightning cutting it, and the harsh reverberation of the god's voice in the thunder. But beyond the sunset on the Blue Mountains was peace at last, where they would "do nothing but dance and sing with all their predecessors." Whether they wished or expected to see the One Alone called Kiwassa there, we are not informed. He was never seen by mortal, it seems, in this world or the next. And yet it was known that he had come to earth once. On a rock below Richmond, about a mile from James River, may still be seen gigantic foot-prints about five feet apart. These were the foot-prints of Kiwassa, as he walked through the land of Powhatan.1

Thus all was primitive and picturesque about this singular race. They were without a written language, but had names for each other, for the seasons, and every natural object. The years were counted by winters or cohonks a word coined from the cry of the wild geese passing southward at the beginning of winter. They reckoned five seasons - the Budding or Blossoming, which was spring; the Corn-earing time, early summer; the Highest Sun, full summer; the Fall of the Leaf, autumn; and Cohonks, winter. The months

1 These singular impressions are on the present estate of "Powhatan " the site of the old Imperial residence. Their origin is unknown.

were counted by moons, and named after their products: as the Moon of Strawberries, the Moon of Stags, the Moon of Corn, and the Moon of Cohonks. The day was divided into three parts: Sunrise, the Full Sunpower, and the Sunset. They had many festivals, as at the coming of the wild-fowl, the return of the hunting season, and the great Corn-gathering celebration. At a stated time every year the whole tribe feasted, put out all the old fires, kindled new by rubbing pieces of wood together, and all crimes but murder were then pardoned; it was considered in bad taste even to allude to them. One other ceremony, the Huskanawing, took place every fourteen years, when the young men were taken to spots in the woods, intoxicated on a decoction from certain roots, and when brought back were declared to be thenceforth warriors.

over

Of

This outline of the aboriginal Virginians will define their character. They were, in the fullest sense of the term, a peculiar people, and had, in addition to the above traits, one other which ought not to be passed they were content to be ruled by women. this singular fact there is no doubt, and it quite overturns the general theory that the Indian women were despised subordinates. When Smith was captured, he was waited upon by the "Queen of Appomattock;" there was a "Queen of the Paspaheghs," and the old historian Beverley, speaking of the tribes about the year 1700, tells us Pungoteague was governed by "a Queen," that Nanduye was the seat of "the Empress," and that this empress had the shore tribes" under tribute." To this, add the singular statement made by Powhatan, that his kingdom would descend to his brothers, and afterwards to his sisters, though he had sons living.

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

whose jus divinum was much more fully recognized than the jus divinum of his Majesty James I. in England. He ruled by brains as well as by royal descent, by might as well as of right. On important occasions, 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.

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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