University of Virginia Library

32. A King's Nephews and Nieces
BY CAPTAIN ARTHUR BARLOWE (1584)[124]

THE twenty-seventh day of April in the year 1584, we departed from England, with two barks well furnished with men and victuals, after receiving our last directions by your letters and also your commands delivered by yourself upon our leaving the river Thames.

The second of July, we found shoal water, where we smelt as sweet and as strong a smell as if we had been in the midst of some delicate garden abounding with all kinds of flowers, by which scent we were assured, that the land could not be far distant. Keeping good watch, and bearing but slack sail, the fourth day of the same month we arrived upon a coast, which we supposed to be, a continent.[125] We sailed along this coast for a hundred and twenty English miles before we could find any entrance or any river issuing into the sea. The first opening that appeared to us we entered, though not without some difficulty, casting anchor about three harquebus shot[126] within the haven's

mouth on the left hand side.[127] After we had given thanks to God for our safe arrival thither, we manned our boats, and went to view the land next adjoining, and "to take possession of the same, in the right of the Queen's most excellent Majesty, as rightful Queen and Princess of the same."[128] This being performed, according to the ceremonies used in such enterprises, we viewed the land about us, finding it very sandy and low toward the water's side, but so full of grapes that the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed the fruit.

We passed from the sea side towards the tops of those hills next adjoining, and from thence beheld the sea on both sides, to the north and to the south, finding no end in either direction. This land we found to be only an island, twenty miles long and nearly six miles broad. Under the bank or hill whereon we stood, we beheld the valleys filled with goodly cedar trees, and having discharged our harquebus-shot, a flock of white cranes arose under us, with such a cry redoubled by many echoes, as might be made if an army of men shouted altogether.

We remained by the side of this island two whole days before we saw any people of the country: on the third day we espied one small boat rowing towards us, having in it three persons. This boat came to the island side, four harquebus-shot from our ships, and two of the people remaining there, the third came along the shore side toward us. We were all on board; he walked up and down upon the point of the land next to us. Then the master and the pilot of the "Admiral," Simon Ferdinando, and the Captain Philip Amadas, myself, and others rowed to the land. Our coming did not make this fellow show

any fear or doubt. After he had spoken of many things not understood by us,[129] we brought him with his own good liking aboard the ships, and gave him a shirt, a hat and some other things, and made him taste of our wine and our meat, which he liked very well. After looking carefully at both barks, he departed, and went to his own boat which he had left in a little cove or creek nearby. As soon as he was

INDIAN WARRIORS.

[Description: Black and white illustration of men wearing what appear to be square snowshoes and hunting a boar and a deer.]

two bow shot into the water, he fell to fishing, and in less than half an hour, he had laden his boat as deep as it could swim. With this he came again to the point of land, and there he divided his fish into two parts, pointing out one part for the ship, and the other for the pinnace.[130] Thus, after he had requited as far as he could the benefits he had received, he departed out of our sight.

The next day there came unto us divers boats, and

in one of them the King's brother, accompanied with forty or fifty men, very handsome and goodly people' and in their behaviour as mannerly and civil as any, in Europe. His name was Granganimeo, and the King is called Wingina,[131] the country Wingandacoa, and now by her Majesty, Virginia.[132]

The King is greatly obeyed, and his brothers and children reverenced. The King himself in person was at the time, sorely wounded in a fight which he had had with the King of the next country. A day or two after this, we fell to trading with them, exchanging some things that we had, for deer skins. When we showed him our whole store of merchandise, of all the things that he saw, a bright tin dish pleased him most.

After two or three days the King's brother came aboard the ships and drank wine, and ate of our meat and of our bread, and liked it exceedingly. Then after a few days had passed, he brought his wife with him to the ships, his daughter and two or three children. His wife was very well favored, of medium stature and very bashful. She had on her back a long cloak of leather, with the fur side next to her body. About her forehead she had a band of white coral. In her ears she had bracelets of pearls hanging down to her waist. The rest of her women of the better sort had pendants of copper hanging in either ear, and some of the children of the King's brother and other noblemen, had five or six in either ear. He himself had upon his head a broad plate of gold or copper, for being unpolished we knew not which metal it might be, neither would he by any means suffer us to take it off his head. His apparel was like his wife's, only the women wear their hair

long on both sides of the head, and the men on but one side. They are of color yellowish, and their hair black for the most part, and yet we saw children who had very fine auburn and chestnut colored hair.