So soon as they had given thanks to God for their safe arrival, they landed, and took possession in ’the right of the Queen’s most excellent majesty,’ and afterward delivered it over to the use of the grantee.  They found the land sandy and low, and expressed their admiration of the abundance of wild grapes, as well as the pines and cedars; but saw no inhabitants.  The third day, they espied a small boat, with three persons, who came to the shore.  There they were met by the two captains and the pilot, and one of the natives boldly commenced a conversation entirely unintelligible to the Englishmen, but most friendly in its tones.  Having received a shirt and hat, the Indian, after viewing the vessels, fell to fishing, and in less than half an hour loaded his boat as deep as she could swim with fishes, which he soon landed on the shore and divided between the ship and pinnace.  The next day, there came divers boats, containing forty or fifty natives, ’a very handsome and goodly people, and in their behavior and manners as civil as any in Europe.’  Among them was the king’s brother, ‘Grangamimeo,’ who said the king was called Winginia.  They commenced trading with the Indians, no doubt greatly to their own advantage.  The natives were, of course, much astonished at the splendor and profusion of the articles offered; but of all things which he saw, a bright tin dish most pleased Grangamimeo.  He clapped it on his breast, and after drilling a hole in the brim, hung it about his neck, making signs that it would defend him from his enemies.  This tin dish was exchanged for twenty deerskins, worth twenty crowns, and a copper kettle for fifty skins.  In a few days, they were visited by the king and his family.  The women had bracelets of pearl and ornaments of copper; the pearl was probably nothing but pieces of shell, and the copper must have been obtained from near Lake Superior, where the mines had been worked ages before the advent of the white man.  The Indians told them of a ship that had been wrecked near there twenty-six years previously, and that the crew attempted to escape in their boat, but probably perished, as the boat was afterward found on another island.  This story has usually been looked upon with doubt; but recent researches in the Spanish archives have shown that they had a fort and colony at Port Royal in 1557, and about the same period, another in the Chesapeake.  There can be but little doubt that the story was true, and that the ship contained Spaniards passing between these two places.  They also told curious stories of a great river ‘Cipo,’ where pearl was obtained, which has puzzled later historians to locate; but we now know that Cipo or Sepo, in the Algonquin language, which was spoken from Maine to about this point, means simply a river, and probably referred to either the Moratio, now called the Roanoke, or to the Chowan.

These narratives give a glowing account of the natives and of their ability to construct their houses and canoes and weirs for fish.  As this was their first intercourse with Europeans, it undoubtedly shows what their true condition was and had been for centuries.  Situated, as this territory is, under a mild climate, where corn, beans, and melons can be so easily raised, and having a great abundance of game and fish, it must have been a paradise for the Indians.  Of the king’s brother, it is said: