At Croatan the springs ran freely, and the soil, being naturally irrigated, bore sufficient crops for all. This the English sowers learned gladly, after inspecting the work of their uncivilized brethren with admiration for the bountiful result, if not for the crude and irksome methods of cultivation. Here men, women, and children were alike tillers of the soil, and although, with needless exertion, sticks were used instead of ploughs and holes dug instead of furrows, the wide fields beyond the town’s encircling strip of woodland showed an abundance of maize, or guinea wheat; beans, pease, and tobacco. About a third of the forest was composed of walnut-trees, from which the nuts were plucked by the natives, to be used as seasoning in spoon-meat. Chestnuts, which strewed the ground, were also gathered and made into a kind of bread. The recent rains appeared to have reawakened nature; for not only had all the crops of fruit and vegetables been revivified, but animal life as well. Wild geese and turkeys, immense flocks of waterfowl and penguins, swans, crows, and magpies, being affrighted now and then by some unaccustomed sound, as a trumpet-call or accidental musket-shot, would rise with a concerted flutter and whir like a great wind above the forest. At these moments the varied clamor of their cries would fill the air with an alarum so loud as to seem almost human in tone and power. Beasts of the field, great and small, were also near neighbors of the tribesmen. Black bear, deer, rabbits, opossums, wild hog, and foxes abounded on every side. Thus all manner of palatable meat was to be had for a single day’s hunting. In life and custom the English soon became half Indian, the Indians half English. Yet, with all the outward sign of harmony, and despite the genuine friendliness, a hope, deep down in the English hearts, strove to believe that this condition was in no way final. The barrier of race was too strong so soon to be removed. The Indians were on their own soil, surrounded by their intimate kinsmen, and living much as they had always lived; but the English were in exile. Thoughts of England haunting them at moments brought restless longings. That which had been born and bred in the bone must die with it. As the grave is the only portal to a life divine, so Death is the sole power by which a new country is forced to yield itself in full before the influx of aliens. The earthly land of promise is for sons, not fathers. With the first generation it is a trust, and only with the second a possession.