Next day the king's brother visited the ships, with forty or fifty men,
"proper people and in their behaviour very civill." The king's brother's
name was Granganamen. Soon after the king himself, Wingina, came. A mat
was spread for him on the sea shore, and he sat down upon it. When the
sailors came to him, he stroked his head and breast, and he stroked
their heads and breasts, to express his love. He made a long speech, and
divers toys, "which he kindly accepted," were presented to him.
Especially a pewter pleased the king's fancy. He drilled a hole in it
and hung it round his neck. It made him a capital breastplate, for which
he was ready to give, and gave, twenty skin of deer, worth twenty
crowns. He was so pleased with his bargain and treatment that a few days
later he brought his wife and children on board. During all their stay
in his kingdom, which was called Wingandacoa, King Wingina sent them
almost every day a brace of bucks, conies, hares, fish and vegetables.
The soil was fertile, as the woods were plentifully stocked with
game--for the sailors put some peas in the ground, and in ten days they
had grown to the height of fourteen inches.
They had, indeed, found the Land of Promise; and the people who
inhabited the land were as friendly as their king. A party went on a
little expedition to the island of Roanoak, which was distant some seven
leagues. There the wife of the chief man, who was absent, welcomed them
with much courtesy. She had their clothes taken off and washed; she had
their feet bathed in warm water, while she herself attended to the
preparation of food. While they were eating, warriors entered the room
armed with bows and arrows. The sailors, fearful of treachery, grasped
their muskets. There was no need for alarm, however. The woman saw their
fear, and ordered the warriors immediately to snap their bows and arrows
across their knees.
Hospitality could go no farther. The whole account of the land
"luxuriant to the water's edge, and of their joyous reception by the
Indians, makes the dreams of the pastoral poets seem true," as Professor
Raleigh puts it. Indeed, the people were such as live after the manner
of the Golden Age. Such, too, the Burmese were found to be some three
hundred years later; they had the same childlike simplicity, the same
earnest kindliness; they, too, were unspoiled and happy. The Indians
were regarded as savages; they were not closely observed or
sympathetically described by these stout-hearted adventurers, as the
Burmese have been by Fielding Hall in his notable books. Their
subsequent history bears out the resemblance. The Indians, simpler, more
childish people--savages in fact--came into contact with a sterner
younger civilization. Their history is known. The history of the subject
Burmese is still in the making.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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