On the 10th of May they reached the Canaries, on the 10th of June the West Indies, and on the 4th of July the American coast. They sailed northward one hundred and twenty miles before they found “any entrance or river issuing into the sea.” They entered the first which they discovered, probably that now known as New Inlet, and sailing a short distance into the haven they cast anchor, and returned thanks to God for their safe arrival. Manning their boats, they were soon on the nearest land, and took possession of it in the name “of the Queen’s most excellent Majestie, as rightful Queene and Princesse of the same,” and afterwards “delivered the same over to Sir Walter Ralegh’s use, according to her Majestie’s grant and letters patents under her Highnesse great seale.” They found the land to be about twenty miles long and six miles wide, and, in the language of the report to Sir Walter,—
“very sandie and low towards the water’s side, but so ful of grapes, as the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed them, of which we found such plentie, as well there as in all places else, both on the sand and on the greene soile on the hils as in the plaines, as well on every little shrubbe, as also climing towards the tops of high cedars, that I thinke in all the world the like abundance is not to be found; and myselfe having seene those parts of Europe that most abound, find such difference as were incredible to be written.”
The report continues:—
“This Island had many goodly Woodes full of Deere, Conies, Hares, and Fowle, even in the middest of Summer, in incredible abondance. The Woodes are not such as you finde in Bohemia, Moscovia, Hercynia, barren and fruitles, but the highest and reddest Cedars of the world, farre bettering the Cedars of the Azores, of the Indies, or Lybanus; Pynes, Cypres, Sassaphras, the Lentisk, or the tree that beareth the Masticke, the tree that beareth the rind of blacke Sinamon.”
On the third day a boat with three natives approached the island, and friendly intercourse was at once established. On the next there came several boats, and in one of them Granganimeo, the king’s brother, “accompanied with fortie or fiftie men, very handsome and goodly people, and in their behavior as mannerly and civill as any of Europe.” When the English asked the name of the country, one of the savages, who did not understand the question, replied, “Win-gan-da-coa,” which meant, “You wear fine clothes.” The English on their part, mistaking his meaning, reported that to be the name of the country.
The King was named Wingina, and he was then suffering from a wound received in battle. After two or three days Granganimeo brought his wife and daughter and two or three children to the ships.
“His wife was very well favoured, of meane stature, and very bashfull; shee had on her backe a long cloake of leather, with the furre side next to her body, and before her a piece of the same; about her forehead shee hade a band of white corall, and so had her husband many times; in her eares shee had bracelets of pearles hanging doune to her middle, and these were of the bignes of good pease. The rest of her women of the better sort had pendants of copper hanging in either eare; he himself had upon his head a broad plate of golde or copper, for being unpolished we knew not what mettal it should be, neither would he by any meanes suffer us to take it off his head, but feeling it, it would bow very easily. His apparell was as his wives, onely the women wear their haire long on both sides, and the men but on one. They are of colour yellowish, and their haire black for the most part, and yet we saw children that had very fine auburne and chesnut-colored haire.”
The phenomenon of auburn and chestnut-colored hair may be accounted for by the fact, related by the natives, that some years before a ship, manned by whites, had been wrecked on the coast; and that some of the people had been saved, and had lived with them for several weeks before leaving in their boats, in which, however, they were lost. It was the descendants of these men, doubtless, who were found by the English.
After the natives had visited the ships several times, Captain Barlowe with seven men went in a boat twenty miles to an island called Roanoke (probably a corruption of the Indian name Ohanoak), at the north end of which “was a village of nine houses built of cedar and fortified round about with sharp trees to keep out their enemies, and the entrance into it made like a turnpike, very artificially.” There they found the wife of Granganimeo, who, with her attendants, in the absence of her husband, entertained them “with all loue and kindness, and with as much bounty (after their manner) as they could possibly devise.”
They did not attempt to explore the mainland, but returned to England, arriving about the middle of September, and carrying with them two of the natives, Manteo and Manchese. They were enthusiastic concerning all they had seen, describing the soil as “the most plentiful, sweet, fruitful, and wholesome of all the world,” and “the people most gentle, loving, and faithful, void of all guile and treason, and such as live after the manner of the Golden Age.”