These majestic savages came from the banks of the Susquehanna River, the headwaters of which reached to the territory of the Five Nations in the lake country of French Canada. As castoff relatives of the Iroquois, the Susquehannocks lived in palisaded forts along the river where they were subjected to constant raiding by their bloodthirsty kinsmen. Hoping to make allies of men with fire guns, they presented Captain Smith with many fine gifts in trade, including bearskins and robes of various furs sewn together. Most significantly, however, they had with them French hatchets, knives and pieces of iron and brass which they said they had acquired in trade from tribes who bartered directly with white men on the River of Canada. This news, gained by Smith in 1608, about the encroachments of French trade on the “back-side of Virginia” probably did more than anything else to awaken Englishmen to their own fur trading possibilities in America. Everyone knew that the French were driving a highly profitable trade with the savages up the valley of the St. Lawrence. What hadn’t been known was how deep they had penetrated into the new continent, or the direction taken. In English minds Virginia stretched northward by land or sea to the 45th parallel at least, even though French charters presumed to encompass territory as far south as 40°. In less than five years English guns would rout French Jesuits and traders attempting a settlement at Mount Desert Island on the coast of Maine, and an expedition from Jamestown would destroy the older plantations of the French fur merchants at St. Croix and Port Royal in the Bay of Fundy itself. Within that length of time the Virginians would be well rooted and competitive as a result of their own good trade in furs, a trade that would expand rapidly in the Chesapeake tidewater. But for the time being, in view of their critical problems of existence, there was little they could do about either the fur trade or the Frenchmen, except to nurse their jealousy. It was natural enough that they were envious of French successes, especially as the hoped-for mines in Virginia seemed to be retreating farther and farther into the hinterland and the prospects of finding a passage to the other sea in the Chesapeake area were diminishing daily. However, staying alive was their immediate problem. Already Captain Smith had spoken out strongly against the fruitless search for gold--“guilded dirt,” he called it contemptuously. As president he would not permit the supply ships to be cargoed with more of the worthless yellow soil or mica-tinctured dirt that they had been ferrying back to England. And, although he still thought there was the probability of a passage farther north or possibly a short overland route between rivers to the other salt sea, he frankly admitted that his own exploration had been entirely unrewarding in this respect. No English explorer before John Smith had dared to be so honest. And Smith went even farther.