The astonished settlers started to their feet, and glancing in the direction whence the words had seemed to come, discerned on the edge of the forest a single dusky figure, waving a hand and advancing boldly towards them. In deep silence the Pilgrims awaited his approach. On reaching the group, the Indian greeted them warmly, repeating his welcome. Reassured by his friendly gestures and hearty repetition of the familiar English phrase in which only kindness lurked, the settlers cordially returned his greeting; and knowing that the way to the heart lies through the stomach, they at once gave their dusky guest “strong water, biscuit, butter, cheese, and some pudding, with a piece of mallard.”[173] The heart of the savage was gained; the taciturnity characteristic of his race gave way, and he told his entertainers many things which they had long desired to know. They ascertained that he was a chief of a tribe of Indians whose hunting-grounds were distant five days’ journey; that the country in their vicinity was called Pawtuxet; that some years previous a pestilence had swept off the tribes that inhabited the district, so that none remained to claim the soil. When asked how he came to speak English, he replied that he had picked up what little he knew from the fishermen who frequented the coast of Maine. In response to inquiries concerning the interior of the country and the tribes inhabiting the inland plateaus, he imparted valuable information.[174] The Pilgrims gleaned these facts from his recital: A sagamore named Massasoit was their nearest powerful neighbor. He was disposed to be friendly; but another tribe, called the Nausets, were greatly incensed against the English, and with sufficient cause. It seems that a captain by the name of Hunt, who had been left in charge of a vessel by Captain Smith in 1614, had lured twenty or thirty of their brother red men on board his ship on pretence of trading; then, when they accepted his invitation, he set sail for Spain, where he sold his victims into slavery.[175] The whole Nauset tribe panted to avenge the atrocious treachery of “this wretched man, who cared not what mischief he did for his profit;” and it was with them that the Pilgrims had had their skirmish when exploring the coast in the December sleet.[176] The Indian from whose broken English these things were learned was Samoset. He was the first of the aborigines who held friendly and intelligent intercourse with the forefathers. His frank, hearty “welcome” was the only one the Pilgrims received; and his faithful, life-long attachment to the English interests, which “made him often go, in danger of his life, among his countrymen,” won the grateful recognition of the exiles, and deserves the plaudits of posterity.