The Pocahontas-John Smith StoryEdmunds, Pocahontas Wight
History
The Pocahontas-John Smith Story
Edmunds, Pocahontas Wight
Pocahontas, -1617; Smith, John, 1580-1631
They shuddered as they remembered their first glimpse of people painted
black or red, as if nature had not darkened them enough. As they
penetrated the savage forests, in the next few weeks, they learned to
expect any adornment, or none. Anything might dangle for earrings: a
bird's claw, or a chicken leg. A naïvely happy warrior even had a live
yellow and green snake which was attached to his ear, and coiled loosely
about his neck so that the snake would spring forward and kiss the
warrior's lips when he chose.
This particular day they encountered no Indians, but a fire-screen kept
them anxious.
"Who says that there are no cooks over here?" The odor of burning grass
had alerted them. "Sniff these oysters, sizzling yet on somebody's
fires."
On the twenty-ninth they set up a cross and called their first finding
"Cape Henry" for their prince. They spread a sailcloth no longer to the
wind, but blessedly to the beaming sun, and thanked God for bringing
them so far, thus far. Fortunately, another cape would be named for
Prince Charles.
On the thirtieth they found a good channel up the river which they named
"Point Comfort."
Here they saw five Indians. When Newport landed and laid his hand on his
heart, they discarded their bows and arrows and invited him to their
town, Kecoughtan. Here they tasted their first cornbread, and smoked
tobacco. Besides, they were entranced by a native dance which was wild
with shouting, stamping, and such antics as would have been expected of
wolves and devils.
On the thirteenth of May, having probed thirty miles up the river which
Indians called the "Powhatan," but which they would name the "James,"
they stopped at a place six fathoms deep where they tied their ships to
trees--as trustingly as if they had been country nags hitched to
churchyard posts. They landed the next day.
That first night many slept in the open, being too tired to fear any
rustling, whether of Indians or serpents, outside the rim of their
campfire. A few stood watch day and night. The brave explored the
forests to fell trees, but the cautious cleared a spot for tents that
was nearer the boat. Boughs of trees made up a half-moon fortification.
Clapboards were loaded on the ship to return to England where lumber was
not plentiful and free. They were not an industrious crowd by nature,
but necessity now pressed every mother's son of them to work whether his
mother had reared him to do tough chores or not. There were eleven
laborers, four carpenters, a blacksmith, a bricklayer, a sailor, a
mason, a tailor and a chirurgien.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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