"When he came to the place his servants spread a long matte upon the ground on which he sate downe, and at the other ende of the matte foure others of his companie did the like, the rest of his men stood round about him, somewhat afarre off: when we came to the shore to him with our weapons, hee never moved from his place, nor any of the other foure, nor never mistrusted any harme to be offred from us, but sitting still he beckoned us to come and sit by him, which we performed: and being set hee made all signes of joy and welcome, striking on his head and his breast and afterwardes on ours, to shew wee were all one, smiling and making shew the best he could of all love and familiaritie.
“After he had made a long speech unto us, wee presented him with divers things, which he received very joyfully and thankfully. None of the companie durst speake one worde all the time: onely the foure which were at the other ende, spake one in the others eare very softly.”
The king himself, it was explained, could not appear, for he was lying at the chief town of the country, six days’ journey off, sore wounded from a fight with the king of “the next countrie.”
A day or two after this welcoming meeting the Englishmen fell to trade with the natives, exchanging various trinkets for “chamoys, buffe, and Deere skinnes.” A bright tin dish had more attractions than anything else in their packet of merchandise. One of the natives “clapt” it on his breast and making a hole in the rim hung it about his neck as a shield, with gestures to indicate that it would defend him against his enemies’ arrows. The dish was exchanged for twenty skins worth twenty English crowns. A copper kettle was traded for fifty skins worth as many crowns. The natives offered good exchange for hatchets, axes, and knives, and would have given anything for swords: but with these the Englishmen would not part. The king’s brother took a special fancy to the Englishmen’s armor. He offered to lay a great box of pearls in gage for a suit, together with a sword and a few other things. His offer was declined for the reason that the captains did not want him to know how highly they prized the pearls till they had learned in “what places the pearls grew.” They afterward apparently satisfied themselves on this point, when, in an exploration of a neighbouring river, they found “great store of Muskles in which there are pearles.”
After a few days Granganimeo came aboard the ships and was entertained like the first visitor, with wine, meat, and bread, to his great pleasure. Another day he brought his wife, daughter, and two or three children aboard. The wife was of small stature, “very well favoured, and very bashful.” She was attired in a long cloak of skin with the fur inwards. Her forehead was adorned with a band of white coral. From her ears depended “bracelets” of pearls, each pearl, of the size of a pea, extending to her waist. Her women attendants, who remained on the shore, some forty of them, during her visit, had pendants of copper in their ears, and some of Granganimeo’s children and those of other “noble” men wore five or six in each ear. Granganimeo’s apparel was a cloak like his wife’s, and on his head was a broad plate of gold or copper. The women wore their hair long on both sides, the men on but one. These natives were of a yellowish colour and generally with black hair.
Their boats were made out of whole trees, either pine or pitch trees. Their manner of constructing them was thus: “They burne downe some great tree or take such as are winde fallen, and putting gumme and rosen on one side thereof they set fire unto it, and when it hath burnt it hollow, they cut out the coale with their shels, and even where they would burne it deeper or wider they lay on gummes which burne away the timber, and by this meanes they fashion very fine boates, and such as will transport twentie men.” Their oars were “like scoopes,” and “many times they set with long pooles as the depth serveth.”
The king’s brother was very just in keeping his promises and generous with supplies. Every day he sent to the ships a brace or two of fat “Bucks, Conies, Hares, Fish the best of the world.” Also “divers kindes of fruites, Melons, Walnuts, Cucumbers, Gourdes, Pease, and divers roots,” and of their “countrey corne, which is very white, faire, and well tasted, and groweth three times in five moneths.” The Englishmen “proved” the soil, putting some pease into the ground; in less than ten days, the narrator averred, they were of “fourteene ynches high.” The natives also raised beans “very faire of divers colours and wonderful plentie: some growing naturally, and some in their gardens”; and both wheat and oats. The soil was declared to be “the most plentifull, sweete, fruitfull and wholesome of all the worlde.” There were counted fourteen or more different “sweete smeling” timber trees. The most part of the underwoods were “Bayes and such like.” There were oaks like those of England, but “farre greater and better.”
The narrator with seven others went “twentie miles into the river that runneth towarde the citie of Skiwak [Indian village], which river they [the natives] call Occam, and in the evening following ... came to an island which they call Roanoak.” At the north end of this island was a village of nine houses built of cedar and fortified round with sharp trees to keep out their enemies, the entrance being “made like a turne pike very artificially.” This village was the home of Granganimeo. As they neared it his wife came running down to the waterside to meet them. Granganimeo was not then in the village, and his spouse did the honours of host most graciously. She bade some of her people to draw the Englishmen’s boat through the beating billows to the shore; others to carry the visitors on their backs to the dry ground; others to take their oars to her house lest the boat might be stolen. After they were come into her dwelling, a hut of five rooms, they were sat by a great fire while their wet garments were washed and dried by her women, she herself in the meantime taking “great paines to see all things ordered in the best maner shee could,” and “making great haste to dress some meat” for their supper. When they had comfortably dried themselves they were conducted into an inner room where, “on the board standing along the house,” a tempting banquet of venison, fruits, and wheat foods was spread. The whole entertainment was marked by “all love and kindnesse, and with as much bountie (after their maner) as they could possibly devise.” Here, as in their other experiences, the Englishmen found the people “most gentle, loving, and faithful, voide of all guile and treason, and such as live after the maner of the golden age.”
Throughout the visit at Roanoke their hostess was assiduous for their welfare. This was most energetically displayed in an incident while they were at supper. “There came in at the gates two or three men with their bowes and arrowes from hunting, whom when wee espied we beganne to looke one towardes another, and offered to reach our weapons: but assoone as[assoone as] she espied our mistrust shee was very much mooved, and caused some of her men to runne out, and take away their bowes and arrowes and breake them and withall beate the poore fellowes out of the gate againe.” When as the evening waned the Englishmen made ready to return to their boats, declining the hospitality of the village over night, she had the viands left over from the supper, “pottes and all,” carried to their craft. When they embarked and rowed off a “prettie” distance from the shore, there to lie through the night, she was much grieved at this evidence of mistrust, and again entreated them to rest in the houses of the village. And when they still declined, she sent “divers men and thirtie women to sit all night on the banke side” opposite them; and as rain began to fall mats were sent out to them for protection against the storm. The narrator explained that they were thus cautious because they were “fewe men,” and if they had “miscaried” the expedition would have been in great danger, so they “durst not adventure any thing.” Yet they had no cause to doubt the sincerity of these natives, “for a more kinde and loving people there can not be founde in the worlde, as farre as we have hitherto had trial.”
On other days further explorations were made around Albemarle Sound, and information more or less authentic was gathered from the natives as to Indian towns, and relations between the tribes and the several kings of the region round about. They found that beyond the islands lay the mainland. They were told of the greatest Indian city called “Scicoak,” on the “River Occam”: of another great town on a tributary of this river, under a “free lord,” independent of neighbouring kings; and another, four days’ journey southwest of Roanoke, called “Sequotan,” or “Secotan.” The friendship of the natives increased in warmth on closer intercourse with the Englishmen. Their interest in the English ships was unbounded. Whenever a gun was discharged, “were it but a hargubuz,” they would tremble “for the strangeness of the same.” Their own weapons were principally slender bows and arrows. The arrows were small canes headed with a sharp shell or a fish’s tooth, but “sufficient ynough to kill a naked man.” They used swords of hardened wood, and a sort of club with the sharp horns of a stag fastened at the heavy end. They wore wooden breastplates for defence. When they went to war they carried with them “their idol of whom they aske counsel as the Romans were woont of the Oracle of Apollo.” They sang songs as they marched forth to battle instead of sounding drums and trumpets. Their wars were “very cruel and bloody.” For this reason, and as a result of civil dissensions that had happened among them in recent years, the people of the region were “marvellously wasted, and in some places the countrey [was] left desolate.”