and good bread, nor ever had better fires in England." In a peaceful interval of a few months, which occurred during the next season, the Indians are said to have brought into Jamestown more than a hundred deer and other beasts daily for several weeks. * * * * * [FN] A species of indigenous plum, which is elsewhere described as growing to a considerable height, with fruit like a medlar, first green, then yellow, and red when ripe. "If it be not ripe, it will draw a man's mouth awry with much torment. If ripe, it is delicious as an apricot." It is evident, at least, that the Powhatan confederacy must have been among the most numerous on the continent. It was warlike too; and though the situation of the Monacans and Mannahoacks among the hills of the back country protected them in some measure, yet nothing but a union of these two nations could assure them of security against their more powerful neighbors on the coast. The Powhatans proper, who gave their own appellation to the confederacy of which they were leading members, were located in what is now Henrico county, on the banks of the James river, and at the distance of about two days' journey from the English settlement at its mouth. The principal chief--or _emperor,_ as the old historians style him--of the thirty tribes of the nation, was found by the first colonists residing with these Indians, and is believed to have been one of their number by birth. His proper name was Wahunsonacook. He had that of Powhatan, by which he has been generally designated, from the town so called, which was the chief seat and metropolis of his hereditary dominions. This town is described as pleasantly situated on a hill. It consisted of twelve houses; in front of which were three islets in the river, not far from what in modern times has been called Mayo's plantation, and a little below the spot where Richmond now stands. It was considered by the English both the strongest and pleasantest place in the whole country; [FN] and was consequently named _Nonsuch,_ it seems, about two years after the settlement at Jamestown, when it was purchased of the emperor by Smith. "The place is very pleasant," says the captain in his history, "and strong by nature, and about it are many corn fields." * * * * * [FN] Stith's History, p. 105. The occasion of the first acquaintance which the colonists had with Powhatan was as follows. The adventurous and ambitious spirit of Smith had prompted him to make several journeys and voyages along the Virginia coast, and into the interior of the country. Within a few months after the settlement of Jamestown, among other tribes he discovered the Chickahominies, and procured a large quantity of provision from them at a time when the colonists were in great need of it.