Captain Smith believed that Mosco was using this argument to keep all their trade for his friends. He headed the barge across the river toward the forbidden territory.

All seemed well as they neared the shore. A dozen or more Indians were on hand to direct them to a good landing in a creek, where three or four canoes filled with corn and other commodities for barter, were already lined up.

When in doubt Smith's custom was to exchange hostages. He made this known but the Indians were reluctant to comply. After consultation among themselves four or five of them ran out in the creek bringing with them their hostage.

Still distrustful, Smith sent one of his men, Anas Todkill, ashore to look around. Within a stone's throw of the landing Anas discovered two or three hundred Indians in ambush among the trees. Todkill attempted to return to the barge but was intercepted by the Rappahannocks. At the same time the Indian hostage jumped from the barge but was instantly killed in the water by the English. A volley of shot from the barge scattered the Indians and Todkill managed to escape. Several Indians were wounded and killed but the English were unharmed.

In this short while many arrows were shot but the barge was protected by Indian shields, or targets, woven so firmly of sticks and grass that no arrow could penetrate them. These Smith had gotten from the Massawomeks.

Captain Smith and his comrades carried the captured canoes and arrows across the river as gifts to Mosco and his friends. The return of the English "was hailed with a trumpet."

When the barge started up the river the next day Mosco was one of the company. As they passed through a narrow place in the river, arrows that seemed to fly from unseen hands began to hit the shields around the boat. At the first arrow Mosco fell flat, hiding his head against the bottom of the barge, but he directed his friends where to look in the marsh, at the little bushes growing amongst the grass. The guns were trained accordingly and at the first volley the bushes fell down and the ambush disappeared. After the barge had moved about half a mile away the Englishmen looked back and saw the thirty or forty Rappahannocks of the ambuscade "dancing and singing very merrily."

As the barge progressed up the river the explorers were kindly treated by the several tribes that they encountered. But the company was saddened, and lessened, by the death of Richard Featherstone, whose body had weakened under the excessive heat and humidity of this unaccustomed climate.

The body of the young Englishman was laid to rest on the shores of a little bay. His comrades honored him as best they could by firing a volley of shot, and naming the bay for him--Featherstone Bay. Smith marked it on his map and it is believed by some to have been near the site of the present city of Fredericksburg.[3]

[Footnote 3: The exact place of burial seems to be a controversial subject.]

The next day they sailed as high up the river as the barge would float.

Smith went ashore and set up crosses of wood and brass and cut their names upon trees to signify that possession had been taken of the country by English authority.

While Smith was thus occupied the sentinel was surprised by an arrow that fell beside him. The white men found that they were surrounded by Indians who were hiding behind trees. After a half-hour skirmish the Indians disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared. Mosco was the hero of the battle--he emptied his quiver, ran to the barge for fresh supplies and pursued the fugitives. Coming upon a wounded enemy Mosco would have beaten his brains out except for the English.

After the physician, Anthony Bagnalle, had dressed the prisoner's wounds, he recovered enough to answer Smith's questions. He belonged, he told them, to the nation of the Mannahocks and was the brother of a chief. He had heard that the English were a people come from under the world to take their world from them. When asked what was beyond the mountains, he answered, "The sun." This Indian's name was Amoroleck.

Mosco was not in sympathy with these proceedings. He told the English that the Mannahocks were a "naughty" race, as bad as the Rappahannocks, and that they had better be on their way.

Smith did not take Mosco's advice. It was night when the party finally embarked and started back down the river. Before long the arrows started rattling against the shields and dropping into the barge. The stream was narrow here, with high banks on one side. Amoroleck called to his people, but in vain; he could not be heard above the shrieks of the warriors. Every now and then Smith discharged a musket in the direction of the most noise. The Indians were persistent and followed the barge for about twelve miles. The darkness was probably all that saved the Englishmen.

At daybreak the barge emerged into a wide place, where the weary adventurers dropped anchor out of arrow-shot, and ate breakfast. They were so tired and hungry that they paid no attention to the four or five hundred warriors crowded along the banks, until after breakfast. Then they took down the shields and showed themselves, with Amoroleck in plain view amongst them. After a consultation the Indians hung their bows and arrows upon trees and two Indians, with bows and quivers on their heads, swam out to the barge and presented these in token of friendship.

Captain Smith now went ashore and told the Indians to send for their kings. Four kings, or chiefs, soon appeared. Smith gave them back Amoroleck. The Indians were happy over this and gave the English bows, arrows, pipes and pouches, but in return they asked for the pistols which the English carried. Smith satisfied them with less dangerous trinkets, and left them dancing and singing and making merry.

The barge continued its journey downstream until the neighborhood of the Moraughtacunds was reached. They stopped here to tell these friends of Mosco of their victory over the Mannahocks. The Moraughtacunds were a feeble race, and small in stature. They begged Smith to subdue the Rappahannocks also.

Smith decided to help this weak tribe, as he would be at the same time helping the English. He summoned the kings of the Rappahannocks to a conference. When they had assembled Captain Smith threatened to burn their villages, destroy their canoes and corn and prove himself a bad enemy. Among the things that Smith demanded was the son of a "king,"

named Rappahannock, as a hostage. The chief objected to this--he had only one son and he could not live without him--but he would give up certain of his women who had been stolen by the Moraughtacunds. Smith found that this was the cause of the recent wars.

Captain Smith returned to the Moraughtacunds[4] and had the three women brought before him. He had a chain of beads put around the neck of each.

He then sent for the King Rappahannock to come, and bade him choose the one he most desired. The second choice was given to the "king" of the Moraughtacunds. Then Smith generously presented Mosco with the third woman. All parties seemed to be satisfied with this distribution.

[Footnote 4: The name "Moraughtacund" was corrupted to the present "Morattico."]

The next day six or seven hundred Indians of both tribes assembled to celebrate the peace that had been thus established. No weapons were to be seen, friendship was pledged with the English, and the Indians volunteered to plant corn for them. In return John Smith promised hatchets, beads and copper.

Mosco was so pleased that at the height of the celebration he renounced his name in favor of one meaning "stranger" and voluntarily became a subject of the English King, James the First.

After the celebration Captain Smith sailed again into the Chesapeake, leaving behind this river that the Indians called Quick-Rising-Water.

_HENRY AND POCAHONTAS_

In 1609 an English boy landed at Jamestown. He was probably about fourteen years old at that time since records show that he had been baptized in England in 1595.

In a short while Henry Spelman was to find himself in a virgin forest among painted savages and wild beasts. What a change for this young son of a British nobleman!

Harry had no doubt been accustomed to a quiet and bookish atmosphere at his home at Congham, Norfolk. His father, Sir Henry, was interested in history and antiques, and in fact was noted for his studies along those lines.

[Illustration: _Henry Spelman living amongst the Indians._]

And why did Sir Henry permit a boy so young to set out upon such a dangerous expedition? Was it because Harry was a third son and could therefore expect little in the way of lands and riches? Since Sir Henry was one of the Council for New England, and treasurer of the Guiana Company, he may have had his eyes on broader horizons.

It was August when Henry arrived in Virginia. It was the hot, muggy season when mosquitoes were plentiful. Shortly after his arrival Captain John Smith took him on a little journey to visit Powhatan. How excited Henry must have been at the prospect of seeing the great chieftain! How little did he suspect what Captain Smith had planned to do with him.

Henry later wrote the following account:

"I was carried by Capt. Smith, our President, to ye litell Powhatan where unknowne to me he sould (sold) me to him for a towne called Powhatan (site of present Richmond city) and leavinge me with him, he made knowne to Capt. Weste, (Francis, brother of Lord Delaware) how he had bought a towne for them to dwell in...."

Soon after Captain Smith left Henry with the Indians a massacre ensued in the Indian village. According to early writers of Jamestown, Henry's life was saved by Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas.

At this time the King of Patowmeke was visiting his emperor, probably to pay his tribute, and to save the white boy from the "furie of Powhatan"

he took him home with him when he returned to the land between the Rappahannock and the Potomac.

This arrangement was probably made by Pocahontas. Before very long she too would be hiding out in the Northern Neck as a guest of the King and Queen of Patowmeke. It is believed by some that Pocahontas and Henry fled with the King of Patowmeke to his village on the Potomac at the same time.

_HENRY AND KING PATOWMEKE_

Henry probably adjusted himself quickly to the way of life in the village of the Potomac Indian tribe. He was probably soon wearing a skin belt and a cord as a breechclout like the Indian boys of his age.

Henry doubtless played a game with them that was like football for he later described this game and indicated that it was played by both boys and women but with different rules: "They use football play which wemen and young boyes doe much play at. The men never. They make their gooles as ours only they never fight nor pull one another doune.

"The men play with a litel balle lettinge it fall out of ther hand and striketh it with the tope of his foot, and he that can strike the ball furthest winns that they play for."

We can visualize Henry learning to shoot the bow and arrow, and learning to follow a trail through the forest. The Indian boys probably taught him to snare beaver, otter and other small animals, and to fish with hooks of bone or stone, and to catch crabs with dip-nets made of silk grass.

We know that Henry watched the women gather corn in hand baskets and dump it into larger baskets for he later recorded these facts. He no doubt learned quickly to like the Indian food--the corn pones that came brown-crusted and smoking from the ashes, the fish and meat broiled on hurdles over the fire or turned on a spit. He doubtless tasted the broth and bread made from chestnuts and chinquapins and reserved for the chief men at the greatest feasts, and opossum and beaver, stews of fish and vegetables, and doves and partridges baked in wet clay, and dined on venison, turkey and oysters.

Henry had chores to do too. He wrote that one of his duties was "stilling the king's young child, for none could quiet him so well as myselfe." This undoubtedly makes Henry Spelman the Neck's first white baby-sitter.

He perhaps had his turn with the Indian boys to sit in a little hut on a platform in the field and scare crows away from the newly planted corn.

We can be certain that Henry avoided the hideous priests and their temples and the houses where the bodies of the dead kings and statues of their god Okee were kept. These places were considered too holy for ordinary people to enter. Indians passed these houses quickly, and even when going up or down the river they would throw "some peece of copper, white beads or pocones into the river for feare their Okee should be offended and revenged of them."

Henry attended funerals of the common people where he saw the body wrapped in mats and placed on a scaffold ten or twelve feet high. The relatives mourned greatly and threw beads among the poor. After the funeral the relatives entertained with feasting, music and dancing.

The corpse stayed on the scaffold until the flesh had disappeared and then it was wrapped in a new mat and later buried.

In the Potomac country punishment for crime was swift and often final.