His visitors were not only grateful for, but were impressed by the advice he gave them and told him they intended to follow it. Then after an exchange of invitations and pleasant farewells, they joined their wives in the capitol grounds as had been arranged and returned by carriage to the landing; where, hailing their boat, they were taken aboard and the voyage resumed. A short while after re-embarking they passed Jamestown, where the first English colony in America maintained an almost futile effort for existence against starvation, the lowland fevers and, worse still, the dissensions and jealousies of their leaders. Little was left of the old settlement. On the low ground a few tumbling ruins washed by the tide marked the town-site; and on a point above, some ivy grown walls and moss covered, weather stained tombstones with half obliterated inscriptions marked the site of a once pretentious church. They knew the history of those first colonists; how landing they spread an old sail overhead from the trees, “to shadow them from the sunne,” and all, one hundred and five, gave thanks to God. How in a few days, they had a more substantial place of worship, where they held “daily common prayer, morning and evening, every Sunday two sermons and every three months holy communion.” Here also in 1612 they built “an hospital with four score lodgings—for the sick and wounded or lame, with keepers to attend them for their comfort and recoverie.” How in that first winter, when their food was exhausted, Pocahontas came with burden bearers, bringing hampers of venison and corn, which “saved many of their lives, that else, for all this had starved of hunger.” How years later, Captain John Smith writing of her to the Queen said: “During the time of two or three years, she next to God, was still the instrument to preserve this colony from death, famine and utter confusion, which if in those days had once been dissolved, Virginia might have lain as it was at our first arrival to this day.” During the voyage from Norfolk to Richmond, the party learned much of the country and the people. Archibald Campbell wrote his father describing people and country: “The shores of the broad, sluggish, brackish river are a succession of tobacco and corn fields or marshy overflowed land. The plantation houses, usually of lumber, have a dozen rooms; and as the family grows in size or importance, wings are added to the main building to meet demands. The houses are furnished in such style as to indicate that tobacco, if not now, has been a paying crop.