These repeated, in every particular, the tableau we have already described: the pose on the dais, the embroidered pillow, the robes and chains, the two seats of honour for the two beauties, the wives and their attendants all in full dress, beads, pearls, paint, and girdles--and without doubt Pocahontas, Matichanna, and Cleopatre. His "chiefest men" also sat in the arbour-house, and forty platters of bread, or more, were in two rows before the door, while five hundred people stood without as a guard. Beyond, the mute but eloquent scalps waved ominously in the air as it was rent by a mighty shout of welcome. Powhatan feasted his guests at an abundant dinner of venison, wild fowl, dried persimmons, nuts, and bread. Mats were laid in order and each guest sat upon his own small square mat of woven grasses. Indian civilization had not yet demanded a table. Women, before the feast, handed wooden finger-bowls and feather napkins. Each guest had his portion in a wooden platter, gravely laying the platter beside him when empty. From gourds or wooden bowls they drank the not unpleasant liquid prepared with crushed walnut-meats and water. There were no knives or forks, but for that matter neither were there forks in Queen Elizabeth's time. She, and all her court, used nature's first implement, and found it perfectly convenient and satisfactory. The dinner knife of the Indian was simply a sharpened reed. Before eating, each Indian solemnly uttered a few words and cast a morsel of food into the fire. After the meal finger-bowls were again offered with the bunch of feathers. Not for one moment did the guests abate their vigilance! Matches were kept burning to touch off the powder in their pieces at a moment's notice. Powhatan once argued that the arms must always be left behind, because these "smoking[39] things made his women sick!" Newport had brought his host a suit of crimson cloth, a white greyhound, and a hat. He now presented him with a boy named Thomas Savage, whom Newport called his son, for whom Powhatan gave "Namontacke his trustie servant and one of a shrewd and subtill capacitie." Purchas remarks in a marginal note, "The exchange of a Christian for a Savage,"--refraining from the suggestive pun (a favourite species of English wit at the time) as being beneath his dignity. The gift, however, was really a loan, and not understood to mean permanent possession. Namontack, the savage of a shrewd and subtle capacity, was intended by Powhatan to accompany Newport to England, and bring reliable information thence of the strength of the country. The poor little Christian boy was to live in constant companionship with these "devils" that he might learn their language and serve the colony as interpreter.