" Smith, in midstream, ordered musket-fire,
and the balls went grazing over the water, and the terrible sound echoed
through the woods. The savages threw down their bows and arrows and made
signs of friendliness. The English went ashore, hostages were exchanged,
and a kind of amicableness ensued. After such sylvan entertainment Smith
and his men returned to the boat. The oars dipped and rose, the bright
water broke from them; and these Englishmen in Old Virginia proceeded up
the Potomac. Could they have seen--could they but have seen before them, on
the north bank, rising, like the unsubstantial fabric of a dream, there
above the trees, a vast, white Capitol shining in the sunlight!
Far up the river, they noticed that the sand on the shore gleamed with
yellow spangles. They looked and saw high rocks, and they thought that from
these the rain had washed the glittering dust. Gold? Harbors they had
found--but what of gold? What, even, of Cathay?
Going down stream, they sought again those friendly Indians. Did they know
gold or silver? The Indians looked wise, nodded heads, and took the
visitors up a little tributary river to a rocky hill in which "with shells
and hatchets" they had opened as it were a mine. Here they gathered a
mineral which, when powdered, they sprinkled over themselves and their
idols "making them," says the relation, "like blackamoors dusted over with
silver." The white men filled their boat with as much of this ore as they
could carry.
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