According to instructions in their locked box, the colonists were admonished not to settle too near the bay because of the Spaniards, nor away from the highway--the river--because of the Indians. At last they found a peninsula which impressed them favourably. It was on the north side of the river Powhatan, as James River was called by the savages, and fifty-eight above the Virginia capes.[13] The peninsula, now an island, was small, only two and three-fourths miles long and one-fourth of a mile wide. It was connected with the mainland by a little isthmus, apparent only at low tide; and this was the spot selected for the settlement which was named, in honour of the King, Jamestown. They could hardly have made a worse selection. The situation was extremely unhealthful, being low and exposed to the malaria of extensive marshes covered with water at high tide. The settlers landed, probably in the evening because of the tide, on the 13th of May, 1607.[14] This was the first permanent settlement effected by the English in North America, after a lapse of one hundred and ten years from the discovery of the continent by the Cabots, and twenty-two years after the attempt to colonize it under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh. Upon landing, the Council took the oath of office; Edward Maria Wingfield, as we have seen, was elected President, and Thomas Studley, Cape-Merchant or Treasurer. Smith was excluded from the Council upon some false pretences. Dean Swift says, "When a great genius appears in the world, the dunces are all in confederacy against him." One reason for the selection of the low peninsula was the fact that the water was deep enough near the banks of the river for the ships to be moored close to the land and tethered to the trees, thus facilitating the transportation of the cargo. These trees presented a novel appearance to the Englishmen. The Indians had stripped them of their lower branches as high as a man could reach, for they had no axes to aid them in collecting fuel. All the tangled undergrowth had been cleared away and burned. A horseman could safely ride through them. The grove was like a great cathedral with many columns, its floor tiled with moss and sprinkled with flowers. We may be sure that good Master Hunt gathered his flock around him without delay, and standing in their midst under the trees uttered, for the first time in the western world, the solemn invocation: "The Lord is in His Holy Temple; Let all the earth keep silence before Him."