ealed itself. A party of men sailed up James River and paid a visit to Powhatan, Emperor of the country, near the present site of Hichmond. They found him in his royal wigwam, — a sour " old man of whom more will be said hereafter, — and after a brief interview returned to Jamestown. Exciting intelligence awaited them. In their absence, a band of Indians had attacked the colonists while planting corn, and a flight of arrows had killed one man and wounded seventeen others, but a cannon shot fired from the ships had put the dusky people to rout. It was more than probable that the sour old emperor had directed this onslaught, and the palisade was mounted with cannon and a guard established.

It was plain from this dangerous incident, that the Virginia colony required a military ruler. Wingfield was a merchant and fainiant utterly unfitted for his

po9ition. .Snytb w:as still mider nrreat, .but aU # oaoe he demanded a trial. This Wiiigfield strode to evade ; he would send him home to England to be tried by the authorities, he said. But the restive soldier suddenly famed out He would he tried in Virginia as was his right — there was the charter ! and the trial took place. The result ws a ruinous commentary on the characters of Wingfield and the Council. The testimo3>y of their own witnesses convicted them oi subornation of perjury to destroy Smith ; he was acquitted by the ury of aU the charges against him; and Kendall, who had conducted the prosecution, was condemned tp pay hi £200 damages. This jswn was preaente by Smith to thp colony for the geieral use, d then e foes purtooi: of the Comviunion, wd the ;$oldier was ;9,dmitt€4 to hi3 seat in the Council.

Such was the first open trial of strength between Smith and the fctionists. e was .estiped to hav0 more, involving the very life of the colony. For the moment all was quiet, however, $ind Newport sailed for England to report ad obtooja supplier, leaving one of jthe harks, the Pinnace, for Jhe S0 of the colony. From tjbis, were to spriu woe? nniimbef e<}.

The colony now seemed prosperous. The skies were blue and the corn was growing $ the supply of provisions was sufficient for three months, and the settlers, in their '' Monmouth caps, Irish stockings, and coats of mail," went in ao4 Put hpat (h pccapjEtioxi with a sense

ol jieQiirJity. The re-tbatcho hat9 wre defended hj cannon, but Powjian hi ' sued {or peace," and the men met and ate their food ir9m tbfi ' common kettle " witiioat {ear.

3ut under tjhis l<ur outside waa tbe canker of incapacity and misrule. In jthe bright days all went well, but discerning eyes might have aeien tlt i the hour of trial the leaders would be jEound waUg. The old chronide paints the men wM;b pitijess accuracy. They had neither brains, cpqrage, jior monds, nor wything good about thepv Wjljigjldf tthe President, had corrupted his easily- Qorrmpted associates luid /Lbe wl9U>le bad crew spent their time in idleness and gluttony. The enterprise had grievously disapiyjpjr Miem and, seeing no iurUier profit W jity they wi )kig for m opportunity to abandon it The trufe men looked sidewise at them mnoe jSmiith's trials ook their bieads. It was Uie next t)4g to a certainty jbbt wbei the diirk hour cam they {would djesrt iheir icomild wid leave them to de- Structian

jon the daifc hour arrived- A wrse enemy than the diBS assaUed the colooy. With July came the sul try dog days' of jtfae /soutU ummw and the marshy banks ol tfie river, 43wel;(ering in the sun, sweated a poisonpps malaria which teptsred into the bipod of the Engr lisb Thjd whole colony was prostrated by a viruleait epidemic. AU thought of gardii against the Indians was abandoned. The supply of food was soon exhausted and destruction stared theip in the face. The men lay wasting away in the sultry cabins. Those who were not attacked were too few to wait on the ck, scarcely ough to dr them out and biry them when they died.

writing of this terrible time, some departed suddenly, but for the most part they died of mere famine. There were never Englishmen left in a foreign country in such misery as we were, in this new discovered Virginia." Night and day men were heard " groaning in every corner of the fort, most pitiful to hear." The writer seems to groan himself as he remembers the fearful scene. " K there were any conscience in men," he exclaims, it would make their hearts to bleed to hear the pitiful murmurings and outcries . . . some departing out of the world, sometimes three and four in a night ; in the morning their bodies trailed out of the cabins like dogs to be buried."

By the month of September famine and fever had swept off fifty men, one half the colony, and among the dead were Bartholomew Gosnold and Thomas Studley, the treasurer. Smith was left to contend single-handed with Wingfield and his followers. These people now showed their true characters, and added cowardice to incapacity. Wingfield and Kendall made an effort to seize the Pinnace and escape to England ; but the colonists rose in their wrath and dealt promptly with them. They deposed them from the Council and elected Ratdiffe President in Wingfield's place ; but Ratcliffe was little better than his predecessor, and did nothing to succor them. The only hope was Smith, and the settlers compelled him by popular uprising to assume the control of the colony.

Smith acted with energy, for the poor people were nearly starving. By an interposition of Providence, the Indians had voluntarily brought them a small supply of com ; but this was soon exhausted, and Smith went down James. River to obtain more The tribe at

Hampton refused it, when he fired a volley into the crowd, captured their idol, seized the supplies, and returned to Jamestown. Another expedition followed, from which Smith returned at a critical moment. Wingfield and Kendall had again seized the Pinnace and were on the point of escaping, but Saiith opened on them with cannon and they were compelled to surrender. Short work was made of Kendall, the ringleader of the conspiracy. He was tried by a jury, found guilty, and shot. The life of Wingfield was spared, but he was deprived of all authority. He remained in the colony ' living in disgrace,' and anxiously looking for an opportunity to return to England.

Thus with famine and disease, hot turmoil and conspiracy, the groans of the dying in the huts, and the Budden thunder of Smith's cannon summoning the mutineers to surrender, passed this terrible summer of 1607. It tried the stoutest hearts, but had this much of good in it, that it showed the adventurers who was their true leader. In the midst of the general despondency one man at least had refused to give way to despair. Though sick himself of the fever. Smith had labored onceadngly for the rest. When ' ten men could neither go nor stand," he had fed the sick and dying, infused hope into the survivors, and had the right to say of himself what he said of Pocahontas, that he ' next under God was still the instrument to preserve this colony from death, famine, and utter confusion."

At last the dawn appeared ; the long night of suffering was at an end. The fall came with its fresh winds, driving away the malaria. The healthful airs restored the sick. The rivers were full of fish and wild fowl, and the eom was fit for breads There was no longer

any danger that the colony would be destroyed by disease or want. A kind Providence, watching over the weak and suffering, had preserved the remnant, and the Virginia plantation had risen as it were from the very brink of the grave. A bitter winter followed — an extraordinary frost in most parts of Europe and as extreme in Virginia " — but this banished every remnant of fever, as the coming of winter destroys to-day the epidemic which scourges the lower Mississippi. The long agony was over, and what was left of the Jamestown colony was safe at last.

Men soon forget troubla The fearful summer which they had passed through was lost sight of,and the dissensions again began. Smith had retired from his place as acting President, and the old incompetent people regained the sway. Complaints were made that nothing had been effected ; that the royal order to go in search of the '' South Sea " had not been complied with ; that the whole enterprise was a failure. Smith replied to these ' murmurs," which we are informed ' arose in the Council," by offering to lead an expedition of dis covery in the direction of the mountains. This was determined upon, and in a severe spell of weather (December 10, 1607) he set out in a barge with a small party of men, ostensibly to make the famous discovery of the great '' South Sea."

THE AKCIBNT YIRGmiANS.

This voyage toward the unknown was an important event in the history of the colony, and Smith's adventuresy during the month which followed, threw him lor

the first time face to face with the Indians in their woodland haonts. He made their acquaintance at their homes on the banks of the rivers; observed their strange rites and usages ; and gathered the details for his picturesque account of them, which enables us to see them as they looked and acted in that old Virginia of nearly three centuries ago.

It is not possible and is unnecessary to reproduce here the full picture of this singular race ; but some of the details, especially those relating to their religious belief, are extremely curious. The experiences of the English, first and last, were with the '' Powhatans,'' who inhabited what is now called Tidewater Virginia, from the Chesapeake to the Piedmont. Other tribes lay beyond, and all were doubtless the successors of the Mound-builders ; but of these the English settlers knew little or nothing.

Smith draws for us a full-length portrait of the Virginia savage, — a barbarian guided by impulse, cunning, treacherous, and nursing his grudge. He lived in a wigwam or an arbor built of trees, and dressed in deerskin ; the women wearing mantles of feathers exceedingly warm and handsome." Both sexes wore bead necklaces, and tattooed their bodies with puccoon, which is the bloodroot ; and the women were subject in all things to their husbands. On the hunting expeditions they carried burdens and built the arbors, while the warriors smoked pipes and looked on. The picture drawn in the old record is somewhat comic. The young Indian women are seen erectinsf the huts at the end of the long day's march ; and in the slant sunset light the youthful braves practice shooting at a target, for by such manly accomplishments they 'get their wives"

from among the dusk beauties working at the sylvan arbors !

The most curious feature of this curious race was their religion. There is no evidence that they had any conception of a beneficent Creator. Their god was Okee, or " The One Alone called Kiwassa," the spirit of Evil. They feared and worshiped him as they worshiped Force in all its manifestations, — fire that burned them, water that drowned them, the thunder and lightning, and the English cannon when they came. As to a good god, there was no such being ; if there was, it was unnecessary to worship him. They need not take the trouble to conciliate such a deity, since from the nature of things he would not injure theuL As to Okee, or the One Alone called Kiwassa, it waa different. This Evil one was to be propitiated, and they made images of him, decorated with copper, which they set up in temples hidden in the woods ; and endeavored '' to fashion themselves as near to his shape as they could imagine."