The rest, from Brion’s point of view, appeared all a grotesque gallanty-show, in which the pieces and the action moved according to some fantastic law having no known relation to a man’s normal experiences. It was an absorbing, yet, somehow, an unearthly dream of expeditions made in the ships’ boats up steaming rivers to barbarous kraals miscalled towns; of oily brick-red skins clothed in hides like chasubles; of beads and wampum; of mahogany-faced warriors, and squaws with their long black hair bound in chaplets of white coral, and carcanets of pearls, sometimes, hanging from the lobes of their ears; of councils and calumets and pow-wows and tomtoms. The ostensible object of all the palaver was to flatter the local monarch, one Wingina, into suffering the settlement within his territory of a band of foreign interlopers, and so consolidating a sort of provisional agreement said to have been made with him by the Captains Amadas and Barlowe who had conducted the expedition of the year before. It was an early example, in fact, of the peaceful penetration which has not the least intention of taking no for an answer, and was characterised by all the blunders common to that state of mind. The force which was resolved to insist had not the wit to disguise itself, and at the first sign of opposition betrayed its real purpose. It happened in this way. The expedition inland in the boats, which were four in number, and all fully manned, armed, and victualled for a week’s trip, came by the so-called towns of Pomeiok, Aquascogok and Secotan, and was well entertained by the savages in all places. But it so happened that, at the second-named, a silver cup belonging to the Admiral was stolen by a redskin, and not being delivered to him, as he had demanded, on his return, Sir Richard, in his swift, relentless way, burned and spoiled the town and the crops standing about it, so that the place was made a waste and all its people fled. Now the savages had hitherto behaved with great forbearance and hospitality, so that hardly a day passed but what they had brought for the fleet offerings of fat bucks, conies, hares, fish, and divers gourds and fruits, and this was their return. What could they think, then, of the true meaning of this ‘peaceful penetration,’ but that it was the first insidious step towards their own ousting and perhaps extermination? The consequences were what any but a blunder-headed martinet might have foreseen. So long as the show of force remained to overawe them, the natives maintained an hypocritical attitude of friendliness and conciliation; the moment the same was withdrawn, they vented their spite and fury upon the colonists remaining, so starving and harassing them that the poor men were glad to seize an opportunity to escape at the end of a year, while some subsequent attempts by others to procure a footing in the land met with even worse disaster, all engaged in them being attacked by the savages and miserably slain, only their