It is interesting, at this time, to see how Lane would, with the caution and boldness of a good soldier, have passed up the broad estuary of the Chowan to ’where it groweth to be as narrow as the Thames between Lambeth and Westminster,’ and so on, and turning into the Blackwater, which he would have navigated probably to where it is now crossed by the railroad, he would have been within fifty or sixty miles of the bay.  While we write, General Burnside is pursuing the same route, not to capture from a savage tribe, but from a rebellious and traitorous people, the same domain.

The same chief or king gave Lane a fanciful account of the Moratio river, which we now call the Roanoke.  He says: 

’This river opens into the broad sound of Weapomeiok, (Albemarle,) and the other rivers and sounds show no current, but in calm weather are moved by the wind.  This river of Moratio has so swift a current from the West, that I thought it would with oars scarce be navigable; the current runs as strong as at London bridge.  The savages do report strange things of the head of the river, which was thirty days’ voyage; that it springs out of a great rock, and makes a most violent stream; and that this rock stands so near unto the South Sea, that in storms the waves beat into the stream and make it brackish.’

This river he afterward explored.  But ere long, either from oppression or fear of the English, the Indians assumed a hostile attitude, and laid plans to surprise them.  The English had to be continually on their guard, and in the mean time famine compelled them to leave Roanoke in large parties, to obtain subsistence from the corn-fields, or proceed along the coast for shell-fish.

About the first of June, 1586, Lane, with a party, left the island, proceeding across the sound, and by a stratagem, hardly authorized in an honorable soldier, captured and killed the chief of the country and many of his people.

In the mean time, he was on the look-out for ships from England, with supplies, and had sent Captain Stafford, with a party, to ‘Croatan,’ probably at or near what is now known as Cape Lookout, to discover their approach.  Suddenly, he reported a great fleet of twenty sail in sight, which proved to be the squadron commanded by the celebrated Sir Francis Drake, who was returning from one of his expeditions among the Spanish settlements in the West-Indies.  When Drake left England, he was directed to look after Raleigh’s colony, and had accordingly brought a letter to Lane.  He anchored his fleet opposite Roanoke, (probably just off ’Nagg’s Head,’ now celebrated as the scene of the temporary sojourn and flight of Governor Wise,) and supplied them with the needed provisions.  He also made them an offer of one of his small vessels, which they very gladly accepted.