seen before them, on the north bank, rising, like the unsubstantial
fabric of a dream, there above the trees, a vast, white Capitol shining
in the sunlight!

Far up the river, they noticed that the sand on the shore gleamed with
yellow spangles. They looked and saw high rocks, and they thought that
from these the rain had washed the glittering dust. Gold? Harbors they
had found--but what of gold? What, even, of Cathay?

Going down stream, they sought again those friendly Indians. Did they
know gold or silver? The Indians looked wise, nodded heads, and took
the visitors up a little tributary river to a rocky hill in which
"with shells and hatchets" they had opened as it were a mine. Here they
gathered a mineral which, when powdered, they sprinkled over themselves
and their idols "making them," says the relation, "like blackamoors
dusted over with silver." The white men filled their boat with as much
of this ore as they could carry. High were their hopes over it, but
when it was subsequently sent to London and assayed, it was found to be
worthless.

The fifteen now started homeward, out of Potomac and down the westward
side of Chesapeake. In their travels they saw, besides the Indians, all
manner of four-footed Virginians. Bears rolled their bulk through these
forests; deer went whither they would. The explorers might meet foxes
and catamounts, otter, beaver and marten, raccoon and opossum, wolf and
Indian dog. Winged Virginians made the forests vocal. The owl hooted
at night, and the whippoorwill called in the twilight. The streams
were filled with fish. Coming to the mouth of the Rappahannock, the
travelers' boat grounded upon sand, with the tide at ebb. Awaiting the
water that should lift them off, the fifteen began with their swords to
spear the fish among the reeds. Smith had the ill luck to encounter a
sting-ray, and received its barbed weapon through his wrist. There set
in a great swelling and torment which made him fear that death was at
hand. He ordered his funeral and a grave to be dug on a neighboring
islet. Yet by degrees he grew better and so out of torment, and withal
so hungry that he longed for supper, whereupon, with a light heart, he
had his late enemy the sting-ray cooked and ate him. They then named the
place Sting-ray Island and, the tide serving, got off the sand-bar and
down the bay, and so came home to Jamestown, having been gone seven
weeks.

Like Ulysses, Smith refuses to rust in inaction.