Terenyawagon, the Holder of the Heavens, who was the patron of the home bands, did not fail, in this crisis, to direct their way also. After giving them practical instructions in war and hunting, he guided their footsteps in their journies, south and east, until they had crossed the Alleghanies, and reached the shores of the sea, on the coasts which are now called the Carolinas. They were directed to fix their residence on the banks of the Cau-tan-o, that is, a Pine in the water, now called Neuse river, in North Carolina. By this time their language was altered, but not so much but that they could understand each other. Here Terenyawagon left them to hunt, increase and prosper, whilst he returned to direct the remaining Five Nations to form their confederacy. Thus far the Tuscarora annalist. History picks up the Tuscaroras precisely where tradition and fable leave them. On the settlement of Virginia and the Carolinas, they were found to be the first nation of any stability of purpose, after passing the Powhatanic tribes, in proceeding south. The intervening coast tribes were petty chieftaindoms, few in numbers and disunited in action or policy. They were essentially ichthyophagi. They soon fell before the two-fold influence of idleness and rum, and have left little or no history, or traits worth preserving. Such is the history of the Chowanokes,[39] the Maratocks, and the Mangoacks, who, in one hundred and twenty years from the date of Raleigh’s patent, had dwindled from 6,000 to forty-six bowmen.[40] [39] Mr. Jefferson thinks (vide Notes, p. 152, London ed. of 1787,) that this tribe was connected with the Tutelos, Nottaways and Meherrins of Virginia. [40] Williamson. The Tuscaroras, who lived in the game country, on the skirts of the mountains, showed themselves at the mouths of Cantano or Neuse, Contentny, and Taw rivers. They were, at the time, numerous and warlike, and as inimical to the inhabitants of the Carolinas, as they were numerous. They were at war with the Catabas, the Cowetas and the Cherokees. Numbers, bravery and success, and abundance of animal food, made them haughty, and they evinced the disposition of their northern brethren, by trying to subjugate and break down their neighbors. What they had done with red men, very effectually, it must be confessed at least with the Catabas, they thought they might do with the Hugenots of France, the cavaliers of England, and the protestants of the baronetcy of Graffenried in Germany. It is not improbable, indeed, that, at a prior era, the Tuscaroras were the very people who had exterminated the colony left on Roanoke island, under the first attempts of Sir Walter Raleigh to colonize Virginia. But, if such were the fact—a mere conjecture at best—they mistook their present neighbors and their own position in attempting to repeat the act.