while the men walked off straight and unencumbered, bearing only their bows and arrows. And when they decided upon a place to fix the camping ground, they lay at ease under the trees, smoking their long pipes and talking of battles, while their wives put up the wigwams and got the camp in order.

They had dances to celebrate important events, as "war dances" andharvest dances," after a battle or harvest. When one of the tribe was ill, they danced the medicine dance about the couch, hoping by their wild cries to drive away the bad spirits which caused disease. But the women did not take part in these dances. When the men danced their war dances with hideous yells, round poles decorated with human scalps, with their faces painted in all the colors of a rainbow, the squaws looked reverently on from beside the camp fires.

They had some rude ideas of religion, for they believed in a "Great Spirit," and in happy hunting-grounds, where the soul of the warrior went after death; and when they buried his body they put in the grave bows and arrows, and food for him to eat on his journey. Often they tried to make friends with this Great Unknown Spirit, by offers of tobacco, or other products of the earth, which they burned on a rude altar built to his worship. Their religion, however, taught them nothing of the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as ye would that they should do to you," nor of the Christian doctrine of forgiveness to enemies. They were consequently terrible and relentless in war, and most of the tribes in North America were exceedingly cruel in their treatment of captives, whether men, women, or children. Sometimes they took a fancy to spare the life of a young child among their white captives, and rear it as one of the tribe; and there are a few instances in which a white man or woman has been found, by their kinsfolk, after having lived so long among the Indians that they had lost all memory of their childhood, and were complete savages in language, customs, and everything except features.

In order that they might be better prepared to bear pain, if in the chance of war it should be their fortune to be made prisoners and put to the torture, the Indians were trained from childhood to be very enduring and hardy. As soon as an Indian babe was born, it was strapped to a flat board, on which it was carried on its mother's back, or sometimes hung on a tree, or laid on the ground. To this board it was fastened night and day. Fancy how decidedly a white

Yet these copper

baby would protest against this treatment. skinned infants rarely uttered a cry, but looked contentedly about them with their bead-like black eyes, and bore all discomfort with serene temper. When it became time for the youth to join the company of the older men, he was forced to go through the severest ordeals of trial and pain to test his fortitude, before he was considered hardy enough to become a warrior.

This is a brief description of the first inhabitants of America of whom we know anything. They were not without their virtues Often very generous and hospitable to the white man who landed on their shores, they gave freely of their corn and such poor food and shelter as they had. When Ribault landed in Florida, you recollect the natives were very kind to him. Indeed, the Frenchmen always understood better how to treat the natives, so as to gain their hearts, than any other of the Europeans, and the Indians kept faith with them better than with any other nation.

When, too, the English landed in Virginia and New England, the natives were not wanting in kindness and proffers of help. After a time they found that these "pale-faces" had come to remain and take possession of their lands; that they were crowding them off from their hunting-grounds and fishing places, and building cities in the sites where their wigwams used to stand. It was not strange that they began to grow jealous of this people, whose number seemed to them like the stars in the sky, or the sands of the sea, and they resented their encroachments with all their savage might and means of warfare.

Indian Pipes.

Now all that the wisest among them could have feared has happened to those poor natives of the soil. The white man has crowded them back farther and farther, till the last Indian is driven beyond the Mississippi. Their tribes are scattered and few in numbers. They have neither been able to keep their savage estate, nor adopt the manners of the white men. It will not be long before the last of them will have died out in the great country that they once possessed and called their own.

CHAPTER XI.

FIRST PERMANENT ENGLISH SETTLEMENT.

King James grants Lands in Virginia..

Smith.
in Tartary.

The Sealed Orders for the Colony. - Captain John His School-days. - Turns Hermit. - Tournament with the Turks. - His Slavery His Character as Leader in a Colony.

John Smith.

THERE were no very vigorous attempts, on the part of the English, to settle in America, for many years after the sad failure of Sir Walter Raleigh's colonies. About the year 1606 and 1607, however, a new interest was aroused, and colonizing in America was again talked about. Queen Elizabeth was now dead, and her cousin, James I., had taken her

place on the throne of England. From King James some enterpris

ing gentlemen in London had obtained a grant of land in America, and the right to plant colonies there.

All the country, north of Cape Fear, on the coast of North Carolina, had been called Virginia ever since Raleigh's first expedition. The gentlemen who held this grant from the king divided their possessions into two parts. One part they called South Virginia, the other, North Virginia. The former included all that tract lying between Cape Fear and the Potomac River; the latter portion lay between the Hudson River and Newfoundland. The strip between the two-comprising the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware — they agreed to leave for the present as neutral ground, where any one might settle, if he were a good and loyal subject of England. After thus dividing the land, the men who owned the grant, or patent, separated into two companies. South Virginia were the "London Company; North Virginia, the " Plymouth Company."

Those who took

those who took

Now settlement began in earnest. In April, 1607, the first permanent colony of Englishmen was planted on this American soil. They were sent by the London Company to the same island of Roanoke where Raleigh's ill-fated, colonies had perished twenty years before. Fortunately they were driven by storms into Chesapeake Bay, and instead of building on the island they fixed their abode on the main-land, at the mouth of the James River in Virginia. This river they immediately named the James, in honor of their king, and they called the infant town which they then began to build in the wilderness, Jamestown.

The principal men who were engaged in this settlement were Edward Wingfield, Bartholomew Gosnold, Christopher Newport, John Ratcliffe, George Kendall, John Marten, and John Smith. Both Newport and Gosnold had made previous voyages to Virginia, and had explored the sea-coast in that vicinity.

Before setting out for America, the London Company had given Captain Newport, who commanded the expedition, a sealed packet, containing the names of those who were to form the council which was to rule and make laws for the colony. They were forbidden to break this seal until they reached Virginia. I confess I see very little sense in such an arrangement, for no one knew who had any authority, and they had hardly set out on their voyage before they began to quarrel about who had the best right to command. One of their number, Captain John Smith, was a mark

for the jealousy of all those who wished to keep the reins in their own hands. No one among the leaders of the new colony was so fitted to rule such an expedition. He was already very popular with the most part of the common people on the ship, and Wingfield, Ratcliffe, and one or two others, began to hate him bitterly. On some pretext or other, therefore, they caused Smith to be imprisoned during the greater part of the voyage, and he was closely guarded till they got to Virginia.

Then, opening their sealed orders, they found that Wingfield, Newport, Gosnold, Marten, Ratcliffe, Kendall, and Smith were appointed members of a council of which Wingfield was to be the president.

Of all the men who came to America in these early days, no one man did more for the permanent establishment of English colonies than Captain John Smith. He was very brave and persevering, and he knew just how to do the right thing at the right moment; and besides these qualities, he had led a life which was the proper apprenticeship for a man who would build up a colony. His autobiography is more like a story out of a novel than any real life history, and to give you some idea of what kind of a man he was I must tell you briefly his story from boyhood, as he tells it himself.

He was born in Lincolnshire, England, of well-to-do parents, and was sent early to school. But even then he was so full of adventure, that when only thirteen years old he sold his satchel and books, in order to raise money for a journey to a neighboring sea-port, that he might go to sea. Before this bargain was completed his father died, and that damped his sea ardor for a time. The guardians who were left in charge of the boy and his small inheritance, regarded the property much more than they cared for him, and most likely were not sorry when he finally ran away. For as soon as they tried to apprentice him to a merchant, he did run away to France, in company with the sons of an earl who lived in the county where John Smith was born and brought up. In France, he and the young noblemen had many adventures, and he was at length furnished by them with money to return to England. But money was merely an incumbrance, and he got rid of it as quick as he could. Then he rendered some service to a Scotch gentleman in Paris, who gave him in return some letters to noblemen in the court of King James, asking them to introduce him at court.

Back to England started Smith; but before he was off the shores of