After following the island a little farther down stream, we cast anchor in a hollow of the shore-line near the steamboat pier. It was not much of a hollow after all and really formed no harbour. When the west wind came howling down the James, picking up the water for miles and hurling it at Gadabout, our only consolation lay in knowing that it could not have done that if we had only got there two or three centuries earlier. At that time, the point, or headland, upon which the colonists landed reached out and protected this shallow bay below. Doubtless, throughout James Towne days, the smaller vessels found fair harbour where Gadabout one night rolled many of her possessions into fragments, and her proud commander into something very weak and wan and unhappy.
In the last few years, there has been an awakening of interest in long-forgotten James Towne. To Mrs. Edward E. Barney for her generous gift of the southwest corner of the island to the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, and to that Society for its work in staying the course of decay and the hand of vandalism, our country is indebted.
The recent researches of Mr. Samuel H. Yonge too have added new interest. It had long been supposed that almost the entire site of the ancient village was lost in the river. Mr. Yonge has shown that in fact but a small part of it is gone. He has even located on the island the exact sites of so many of the more important village buildings that, it is said, old James Towne could be practically reproduced in wood and brick from his map, based upon the ancient records.
To verify his work, Mr. Yonge undertook (in 1903) to discover the buried ruins of a certain row of buildings that the records described as made up of a State-house, a "country house," and three dwellings. The search was begun with a steel probe, which struck the hidden foundations within twenty-five feet of their position as indicated on his plat. Then the Association began excavating; the foundations were uncovered, and are now among the things to see on the island.
As Mr. Yonge's map shows the larger part of the site of James Towne to be lying to the east of the church tower and outside of the A.P.V.A. grounds, the Daughter of the Island was interested too in seeing what probe and pick and shovel could do.
It was at one of James Towne's old homes that we next met her. The meeting, judging from our map of the village, was probably at Captain Roger Smith's, though one could not be sure. There was no name on the door, nor indeed any door to put a name on, nor indeed any house to put a door on—just an ancient basement that the Daughter of the Island had discovered and was having cleaned out. It badly needed it, nothing of the kind having been done perhaps for over two hundred years.
"Come and see my find," she cried.
The testing probe having struck something that indicated a buried foundation, there in the black pea field, this young antiquarian had put men at work and was being rewarded by finding the ruins of some ancient house. Portions of two rooms had been disclosed and the stairway leading down into one of them.
"Come down the stairs," said the proud lady in the cellar.
"Oh, what narrow steps!" Nautica exclaimed.