As they ranged along this coast pursuing their quest for several days, dropping anchors at night wherever they happened to be, the voyagers observed the luxurious country with keen interest. They found it “marvellously sweete with both marish and medow ground, and goodly woods among.” As they sailed onward Hawkins in his shipboat explored the creeks and estuaries, and frequent landings were made from the fleet on the green shores. Sorrel was seen growing “as abundantly as grasse,” and about the habitations of the natives were “great store of maiz [maize: Indian corn] and mill, and grapes of great bignesse,” tasting much like the English grape. Deer were “in great plentie, which came upon the sands before them.” There were quantities of “divers other beasts, and fowle, serviceable to the use of man”; and luscious fish with strange creatures of the waters. The natives were observed apparelled in deer skins, hand-painted, “some yellow and red, some blacke and russet, and every man according to his own fancy.” Their bodies were also painted, “with curious knots or antike worke.” The colours were picked into the flesh with a thorn. When arrayed for war their faces were daubed with “a sleighter colour” to give them a fiercer show. Their weapons were bows and arrows of hard wood and reeds. The arrows were of great length, feathered, and variously tipped: with viper’s teeth, or bones of fishes, flint stones, occasionally with silver. The women’s apparel, besides painted deer skins, comprised “gowns of mosse,” long mosses, “which they sew together artificially.” Hawkins was impressed with the spaciousness as well as the richness of the region ready for the white man’s cultivation. As he put it: “The commodities of this land are more then [than] are yet knowen to any man: for besides the land itselfe, whereof there is more then any king Christian is able to inhabit, it flourisheth with meadow, pasture ground, with woods of Cedar and Cypress and other sorts as better can not be in the world.” There were of “apothecary herbs, trees, roots, and gummes great store.” Turpentine, myrrh, and frankincense were abundant. As for the precious metals, the natives wanted neither gold nor silver, for both were worn for ornament; but where they were to be obtained had not yet come to light. It was thought that the hills would be found to yield them, when sufficient people, Europeans, were here to abide. Life could easily be sustained in this land with its plenty of maize, which made “good savoury bread and cakes as fine as floure [flour].”