on Chesapeake Bay, on Cape Henry, and the next day
coasted to the Indian town of Kecoughton, now Hampton,
where they were kindly entertained. When they
first came to land the savages made a doleful noise,
laying their paws to the ground and scratching the
earth with their nails. This ceremony, which was
taken to be a kind of idolatry, ended, mats were brought
from the houses, whereon the guests were seated, and
given to eat bread made of maize, and tobacco to smoke.
The savages also entertained them with dancing and
singing and antic tricks and grimaces. They were
naked except a covering of skins about the loins,
and many were painted in black and red, with artificial
knots of lovely colors, beautiful and pleasing to
the eye. The 4th of May they were entertained
by the chief of Paspika, who favored them with a long
oration, making a foul noise and vehement in action,
the purport of which they did not catch. The
savages were full of hospitality. The next day
the weroance, or chief, of Rapahanna sent a messenger
to invite them to his seat. His majesty received
them in as modest a proud fashion as if he had been
a prince of a civil government. His body was painted
in crimson and his face in blue, and he wore a chain
of beads about his neck and in his ears bracelets
of pearls and a bird’s claw. The 8th of
May they went up the river to the country Apomatica,
where the natives received them in hostile array,
the chief, with bow and arrows in one hand, and a
pipe of tobacco in the other, offering them war or
peace.
These savages were as stout and able as any heathen
or Christians in the world. Mr. Percy said they
bore their years well. He saw among the Pamunkeys
a savage reported to be 160, years old, whose eyes
were sunk in his head, his teeth gone his hair all
gray, and quite a big beard, white as snow; he was
a lusty savage, and could travel as fast as anybody.
The Indians soon began to be troublesome in their
visits to the plantations, skulking about all night,
hanging around the fort by day, bringing sometimes
presents of deer, but given to theft of small articles,
and showing jealousy of the occupation. They murmured,
says Percy, at our planting in their country.
But worse than the disposition of the savages was
the petty quarreling in the colony itself.
In obedience to the orders to explore for the South
Sea, on the 22d of May, Newport, Percy, Smith, Archer,
and twenty others were sent in the shallop to explore
the Powhatan, or James River.
Passing by divers small habitations, and through a
land abounding in trees, flowers, and small fruits,
a river full of fish, and of sturgeon such as the
world beside has none, they came on the 24th, having
passed the town of Powhatan, to the head of the river,
the Falls, where they set up the cross and proclaimed
King James of England.
Smith says in his “General Historie” they
reached Powhatan on the 26th. But Captain Newport’s
“Relatyon” agrees with Percy’s, and
with, Smith’s “True Relation.”
Captain Newport, says Percy, permitted no one to visit
Powhatan except himself.