now come to
inhabit some parts of his distant lands," etc.

Strachey of course means the second plantation and not the first, which,
according to the weight of authority, consisted of only fifteen men and
no women.

In George Percy's Discourse concerning Captain Newport's exploration
of the River James in 1607 (printed in Purchas's "Pilgrims") is this
sentence: "At Port Cotage, in our voyage up the river, we saw a savage
boy, about the age of ten years, which had a head of hair of a perfect
yellow, and reasonably white skin, which is a miracle amongst all
savages." Mr. Neill, in his "History of the Virginia Company," says that
this boy "was no doubt the offspring of the colonists left at Roanoke by
White, of whom four men, two boys, and one young maid had been preserved
from slaughter by an Indian Chief." Under the circumstances, "no doubt"
is a very strong expression for a historian to use.

This belief in the sometime survival of the Roanoke colonists, and their
amalgamation with the Indians, lingered long in colonial gossip. Lawson,
in his History, published in London in 1718, mentions a tradition among
the Hatteras Indians, "that several of their ancestors were white people
and could talk from a book; the truth of which is confirmed by gray eyes
being among these Indians and no others."

But the myth of Virginia Dare stands no chance beside that of
Pocahontas.

V. FIRST PLANTING OF THE COLONY

The way was now prepared for the advent of Captain John Smith in
Virginia. It is true that we cannot give him his own title of its
discoverer, but the plantation had been practically abandoned, all
the colonies had ended in disaster, all the governors and captains
had lacked the gift of perseverance or had been early drawn into other
adventures, wholly disposed, in the language of Captain John White, "to
seek after purchase and spoils," and but for the energy and persistence
of Captain Smith the expedition of 1606 might have had no better fate.
It needed a man of tenacious will to hold a colony together in one spot
long enough to give it root. Captain Smith was that man, and if we find
him glorying in his exploits, and repeating upon single big Indians
the personal prowess that distinguished him in Transylvania and in the
mythical Nalbrits, we have only to transfer our sympathy from the Turks
to the Sasquesahanocks if the sense of his heroism becomes oppressive.

Upon the return of Samuel Mace, mariner, who was s