But Raleigh was not discouraged; he sent out another company, two years afterwards (1587), under John White. This company also settled on Roanoke Island and laid the foundations of the "City of Raleigh." And here, on this wild American island, where a few years before many brave Englishmen had been killed by the savage Indians, where there were only rough log-houses to live in, and where fierce wild animals roamed through the gloomy forests, was born one day a little baby girl. She was the granddaughter of Captain John White, the governor of the colony. This little girl was the first child born in America of English parents, and she was named "Virginia Dare." Some time after White had to go back to England for provisions; he was away three years, and when he returned to Roanoke every trace of the colony had disappeared. And to this day no one knows what ever became of the colonists, and of little Virginia Dare. It is supposed that they might have been carried away by the Indians and spent their lives as captives, but no one knows whether Virginia Dare grew up as an Indian maiden, far away from her friends and not knowing that she was the child of white parents, or whether, with all the rest of the colony, she perished by the hands of the Indians. All we know is that, more than three hundred years ago this little English maiden came to live a while on the Island of Roanoke, and that then she vanished as utterly as do the rain drops that fall into the sea, and only her name is remembered.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS, THE INDIAN PRINCESS.
Pocahontas was a very beautiful child, and was so good and sweet that she was loved by all the tribe over which her father ruled. Her home was in Virginia, and a very happy life she led there, in the sunny woods, with the birds and squirrels for her companions; and in after years, when she went to live far away across the sea, the memory of her childhood home seemed the sweetest thing in the world to her, for it brought to her mind the songs of the birds, the beautiful flowers, the waving trees, the bright rivers, and the fair skies that she was so familiar with when she was a little happy child.
To have had a happy childhood is a very beautiful thing, it makes all after-life sweeter, it is like the first spring flowers which we gather in the meadow, and although by and by the snow will come and cover the place where they bloomed, it cannot take away the memory of their sweetness and loveliness, for that is in our hearts and will stay there forever.
So Pocahontas grew up in this pleasant home, and learned to embroider her dresses with shells, and to weave mats, and to cook, and to do all those things which Indian maidens were accustomed to.
One day, when she was about twelve years old, an Indian came into the village and told the people a story about a wonderful white man that had been captured some time before. It was said that he could talk to his friends many miles away by putting down words on a piece of paper, and he had a queer little instrument by which he talked with the stars, and he had told them that the earth was round, and that the sun "chased the night around it continually." They had never heard of such curious things before, and they decided that this strange being was something more than a mere man, and that perhaps it was in his power to bring good or evil upon them as he wished. So all the Indian priests and magicians met together and for three days practised all sorts of magic to find out from the invisible world what they had better do with their prisoner; and finally they decided to take him to the great chief Powhatan, father of Pocahontas, and let him decide for them.
Powhatan received the captive with great courtesy. He asked him about his life, and found that he was one of a company of men who had sailed from England to found a settlement in Virginia.
