Since it is impossible to travel far in the Neck without coming upon some stream of water, many of John Smith's forest vistas must have ended with a glimpse of a river or frozen pond. He wrote of the many "sweete and christall springs" that flowed through the woods on their way to the sea.

Many of the forest trees were white oaks, and some may have been a thousand or more years old. These groves were revered by the Indians.

Indians were fond of the mulberry tree. Smith notes: "By the dwelling of the savages are some great Mulberry trees; and in some parts of the country, they are found growing naturally in prettie groves."

Besides pine, oak and mulberry, there were, Smith writes, "... goodliest Woods as Beech, Cedar, Cypresse, Walnuts, Sassfras, and other trees unknowne." Chinquapin was one of the "trees unknowne."

Locust and tulip poplar were plentiful. Sweet gum, live oak, holly and cedar flourished in low grounds. Bayberry grew in the swamps and near the edge of the water.

When Captain Smith first saw the Neck it was bitterly cold, with "frost and snow," so he may not have seen the pine needles and scarlet turkey berries. The forest aisles may have been deeply covered with snow.

"_WILD BEASTES_"

If the forest floor was covered with snow when Captain John Smith was led a captive across the Northern Neck in the winter of 1607, it is probable that he saw snowshoe rabbits scampering about between the big trees. Porcupines lived there too, and wild-cats, pole-cats and a marten known as "black fox." The little animal he saw with the spotted coat, like the skin of a fawn, was a ground squirrel.

John Smith saw the flying squirrel and the opossum for he describes them: "A small beast they haue ... we call them flying squirrels, because spreading their legs, and so stretching the largeness of their skins, that they have bin seene to fly 30 or 40 yards. An opassom hath an head like a Swine, and a taile like a Rat, and is the bigness of a Cat."

Ordinary squirrels, rabbits, foxes and "Rackoones" were abundant.

Captain John Smith no doubt saw beaver at work when they crossed the many streams. "The Beaver," he wrote, "is as bigge as an ordinary water dogge ... His taile somewhat like ... a Racket, bare without haire."

The procession of Indians and the lone white man may have come upon a herd of heavy, slow-moving "Kine." (These were buffalo but are believed to have lacked the hump.) They were not as wild as the other animals of the wilderness. Perhaps Smith caught glimpses of the elk that roamed the forest.

At night John Smith heard the sounds of many wild beasts. The wolves were small but numerous and ravenous. In the evening they hunted like a pack of beagle hounds.

If the procession happened to be encamped near the head of a river he probably heard before morning the scream of a panther as he stalked his prey.

But of all the animals in the Tidewater region at that time, Smith says "Of beastes the chiefe are Deare."

The Northern Neck had been hunted less by the Indians than the lower peninsulas, and it was teeming with wildlife. The primeval forest furnished home and food for the "wild beastes."

"_BIRDS TO VS UNKNOWNE_"

When John Smith traveled across the Northern Neck, from the Rappahannock to the Potomac, in the winter of 1607, he probably saw many birds, for this was their season.

"In winter," he wrote, "there are great plenty of Swans, Craynes gray and white with blacke wings, Herons, Geese, Brants, Ducke, Wigeon, Dotterell, Oxeies, Parrots, and Pigeons. Of all those sorts great abundance, and some other strange kinds, to vs unknowne by name. But in sommer not any, or a very few to be seene."

For ages wildfowl had been multiplying with little to hinder them. The Indians killed only what they needed and their weapons were too primitive to make an impression on the great flocks of waterfowl that came to the rivers and marshes to feed on the heavy growth of wild celery, oats and other aquatic plants.

In early winter when these fowl gathered in their annual migration from the North the sky, it was said, was darkened with them as they arose and descended from their feeding grounds in the marshes lying along shore.

John Smith probably heard the trumpet notes of the swans and saw the pattern of flight of the wild geese many times while on his "journie."

He may have at some time seen one of the flightless Great Auks, swimming along down the Bay on its way South for the winter. Or he may have espied a heath hen on the shores of the Chesapeake.

It is doubtful if he saw very many of the "Parrots" he mentioned. They were nocturnal creatures--small, swift, bright and beautiful. The passenger pigeons came in such flocks that their "weights brake down the limbs of large trees thereon they rested at night."

There were many red birds to brighten the somber forest aisles. A little bird with white breast and black wings and back was called "snow-bird"

by the English because it arrived at the first fall of snow. Captain Smith probably saw these in the vicinity of the Indian villages as they stayed near habitations.

Turkeys were common in the reedy marshes. Flocks of four and five hundred were not unusual. These wild turkeys, early writers say, averaged forty pounds in weight.

Quail and other common varieties of birds were abundant.

_THE NOMINIES_

The Indians reckoned their years by winters, or cohonks, as they called them, "which was a name taken from the note of the wild geese, intimating so many times of the wild geese coming to them, which was every winter."

There is no way of knowing whether it was the first or second moon of cohonks when John Smith and his captors arrived at the village of the Nominies, near the Potomac. It was so cold that Smith marveled at how some of the scantily clad warriors could endure it. He felt thankful that his own "gowne," which he had lost when he was captured, had been returned to him.

The village must have appeared bleak and primitive, with its fifteen or twenty arbor-like dwellings scattered among the sparse trees, its barren garden plots, its cornfields, marked by last season's dead stalks and some burned-out tree stumps.

As the procession approached there is little doubt that the scene came to life. The dogs were probably the first to join their howls with the death and victory yells of the warriors. These Indian dogs resembled a cross between a male wolf and an ordinary female dog. There were no other domestic animals, no beasts of burden, and no way to travel except by foot or canoe.

The women and children who emerged from the mat-covered doors of their houses were dressed in garments made of the skins of wild beasts with the hair left on for winter. Some wore long cloaks, made of skins embroidered with beads, others wore beautiful mantles of turkey feathers. Some wore feathered headgear, and jewelry fashioned of shells, beads and copper.

Smith wrote that the Indians gazed upon him "as he had beene a monster."

He was probably deposited in one of the houses, with a guard of six or eight warriors. These houses were built of flexible boughs, set in two parallel rows with floor space between, and lashed together at the top to form an arch-shaped roof. The entire framework was covered with bark or woven grass mats. "He who knoweth one such house," wrote Smith, "knoweth them all."

Inside the houses were "drie, warme, smokie." There was no chimney to conduct the smoke from the fire on the dirt floor to the vent in or near the roof. If the fire ever went out it was hard to start a new one--"their fire they kindle by chafing a dry pointed stike in a hole of a little peece of wood, that firing itselfe will so fire mosse, leaves, or anie such like drie thing that will quickly burne."

John Smith was no doubt glad to have a "warme," "drie" place to rest, even though "smokie." He could stretch out on one of the platforms running down each side of the building. There were no partitions in these houses. The platforms, about a foot high, served as beds, and were spread with "fyne white mattes" and skins. Whole families, from six to twenty persons, slept in these one-room dwellings, some on the platforms, some on the ground.

Captain Smith could probably hear the celebration going on outside. The Indians had a large plot which they used for feasts and a place where they made merry when the feasts were over.

With the abundance of wildfowl and game and the harvest of corn stored away, this was an ideal time for feasting. Oysters from the Potomac were probably included in the menu for the Indians were fond of roasted oysters.

Smith was not forgotten. He noted that they "fedde" him "bountifully,"

but would not eat with him. We can imagine him there at his solitary meal, supping on corn pone, "fish, fowle, and wild beastes, exceeding fat," by the light of "candells of the fattest splinters of the pine."

_THE DISCOVERERS_

When Captain John Smith was in the Northern Neck he saw the Potomac and heard tales from the "Salvages" of a place where there was a mine of "glistering mettal." He made up his mind that if he got out of this predicament he would explore the river "Patowmeke," find the gold mine, and perhaps a passage "strait through to the South Sea."

When he finally did get back to Jamestown the colony was in a bad way.

During the extreme cold of the winter of 1607-8, the heavy fires necessary for warmth had caused the thatch-roofed town to burn. This included the granary with all their provisions, and the "palisadoes."

By the time the town had been rebuilt, and other difficulties adjusted, it was summer. John Smith was impatient to begin his next adventure but he waited until the corn crop had been "laid by."

[Illustration: _John Smith in the shallop exploring the waters of Northern Neck, Virginia._]

He left the fort on the second of June, 1608, in an open barge of "less than three tons burthen." His only instrument was a compass. His companions were--a physician, six gentlemen and seven soldiers.

They crossed the Chesapeake Bay to the eastern shore, proceeding along the coast, "searching every inlet and bay fit for harbours and habitations." The Bay was easy to navigate, the greatest menace were the sudden thunder squalls.