copper brown. Their hair is straight, long, and dark. In their moral disposition they are generally cunning and deceitful, and always revengeful and cruel. Such was the state and character of the people whom the English found scattered over the wilds and forests of America.

The colony left at Roanoke made some attempts to explore the interior of the country. They penetrated on the north as far as the Chesapeake nation of Indians, who were situated on what is now called Elizabeth river, and to Secotan* on the south. Towards the northwest they discovered the Chowhanocks, who dwelt about the junction of the Meherrin and Nottoway rivers. The chief of this tribe amused the English with an account of a copper mine and pearl fishery, and a marvellous description of the source of the Roanoke, which he said gushed from a rock on the borders of a great ocean. The credulous adventurers supposing this to be the south sea

* Secotan was an Indian town situated between the Neus and Pamptico, about eighty miles distant from Roanoke.

hoped soon to find a short route to South America. With a view also of finding rich mines they ascended the river in their boats until want of provisions compelled them to return. About this time they met with a real loss in the death of Granganameo, whose friendship to the English had been constant and sin

eere.

Many of the Indian chiefs, who had heard of the arrival of the English, began to testify their friendship by presents and by visiting the colony, accompanied by numbers of their subjects. The king of the island however, whose name was Wingina, did not imitate the example of Granganameo and other friendly natives. When the English arrived in his country he was confined by wounds which he had received in battle. He had no sooner recovered than he began to plot the ruin of the invaders. For this purpose he issued secret orders to his warriors to assemble and attack the colony. The plot fortunately for the English was discovered, and Wingina and a number of his men were drawn into ambush and slain.

During this year, (1585) sir Francis Drake, who had been cruising in the West Indies against the Spaniards, visited the infant colony in Virginia, and supplied them with such articles as their wants required. He gave them a ship also, to enable them, in case their situation made it necessary, to return to England. Before he left the coast of Virginia there happened a violent storm, which drove their vessel from its anchorage, and so alarmed the colonists that they determined to abandon their settlement. They sailed with Drake for England, where they arrived in July 1586.*

See Burk's Virginia, vol. Le

CHAPTER III.

A FEW days after the departure of Lane and his companions for England, sir Richard Grenville arrived with three ships, and provisions for the colony. Finding none of the colonists, they suspected that they had been exterminated by the Indians. Their fears were removed by the information of Manteo, from whom they learned that their countrymen had returned to England with sir Francis Drake. Sir Richard Grenville concluded to leave fifty men at Roanoke, and having supplied them with provisions for two years, he returned to England.

The following year John White with three ships sailed for Virginia. He was appointed governor of the colony with the assistance of twelve counsellors. On their arrival at Cape Hatteras, they despatched a party in search of the fifty men left at Roanoke by Grenville. They found their houses abandoned, their fort

destroyed, and no sign of recent habitation, except the bones of a man on the place where the fort had stood. Twenty men under the guidance of Manteo were then sent to Croatan* to gain, if possible, some information respecting the colony. They there understood that in a quarrel betwixt Wingina's people and the English, one of the latter had been slain, and that they had soon after abandoned the settle

ment.

On the 13th of August Manteo underwent the ceremony of baptism, and for his friendship to the English was honoured with the title of lord of Dessamonpeake.† White soon afterwards returned to England, leaving one hundred persons on one of the islands adjacent to Hatteras.

In the year 1589 sir Walter Raleigh assigned to Thomas Smith and others his patent, with a donation of one hundred pounds for the

* Croatan was an Indian town situated near Ocracock inlet on Core Bank.

Dessamonpeake-a tribe of Indians were so called,