They shuddered as they remembered their first glimpse of people painted black or red, as if nature had not darkened them enough. As they penetrated the savage forests, in the next few weeks, they learned to expect any adornment, or none. Anything might dangle for earrings: a bird's claw, or a chicken leg. A naïvely happy warrior even had a live yellow and green snake which was attached to his ear, and coiled loosely about his neck so that the snake would spring forward and kiss the warrior's lips when he chose.
This particular day they encountered no Indians, but a fire-screen kept them anxious.
"Who says that there are no cooks over here?" The odor of burning grass had alerted them. "Sniff these oysters, sizzling yet on somebody's fires."
On the twenty-ninth they set up a cross and called their first finding "Cape Henry" for their prince. They spread a sailcloth no longer to the wind, but blessedly to the beaming sun, and thanked God for bringing them so far, thus far. Fortunately, another cape would be named for Prince Charles.
On the thirtieth they found a good channel up the river which they named "Point Comfort."
Here they saw five Indians. When Newport landed and laid his hand on his heart, they discarded their bows and arrows and invited him to their town, Kecoughtan. Here they tasted their first cornbread, and smoked tobacco. Besides, they were entranced by a native dance which was wild with shouting, stamping, and such antics as would have been expected of wolves and devils.
On the thirteenth of May, having probed thirty miles up the river which Indians called the "Powhatan," but which they would name the "James," they stopped at a place six fathoms deep where they tied their ships to trees—as trustingly as if they had been country nags hitched to churchyard posts. They landed the next day.
That first night many slept in the open, being too tired to fear any rustling, whether of Indians or serpents, outside the rim of their campfire. A few stood watch day and night. The brave explored the forests to fell trees, but the cautious cleared a spot for tents that was nearer the boat. Boughs of trees made up a half-moon fortification. Clapboards were loaded on the ship to return to England where lumber was not plentiful and free. They were not an industrious crowd by nature, but necessity now pressed every mother's son of them to work whether his mother had reared him to do tough chores or not. There were eleven laborers, four carpenters, a blacksmith, a bricklayer, a sailor, a mason, a tailor and a chirurgien.
The colonists had been warned against marshy land, and forbidden to settle near a low or moist place, and that was just what Jamestown Island was, although it looked enticingly green along the tawny river. Half of its fifteen hundred acres were swampy, but the settlers counted on making the cleared land produce crops in another year, and a quick wheat crop just now. They were tired of seeking a haven, and this spot had a subtle charm, for secret pools and creeks meandered from marsh to forests, and wide weed-ridden marshes were slashed through the forests like alleys. At Black Point they would soon see lilies and mallows blanching the sable ground.
Smith was allowed to go with Captain Newport on an exploring trip to the falls of the river in search of gold. On their way they made friends with a savage chief who was the son of the great Powhatan. Their "firewater" overwhelmed him for a day, but on the next day he was ready for more.