ining forty or fifty natives, 'a very handsome and
goodly people, and in their behavior and manners as civil as any in
Europe.' Among them was the king's brother, 'Grangamimeo,' who said the
king was called Winginia. They commenced trading with the Indians, no
doubt greatly to their own advantage. The natives were, of course, much
astonished at the splendor and profusion of the articles offered; but of
all things which he saw, a bright tin dish most pleased Grangamimeo. He
clapped it on his breast, and after drilling a hole in the brim, hung it
about his neck, making signs that it would defend him from his enemies.
This tin dish was exchanged for twenty deerskins, worth twenty crowns,
and a copper kettle for fifty skins. In a few days, they were visited by
the king and his family. The women had bracelets of pearl and ornaments
of copper; the pearl was probably nothing but pieces of shell, and the
copper must have been obtained from near Lake Superior, where the mines
had been worked ages before the advent of the white man. The Indians
told them of a ship that had been wrecked near there twenty-six years
previously, and that the crew attempted to escape in their boat, but
probably perished, as the boat was afterward found on another island.
This story has usually been looked upon with doubt; but recent
researches in the Spanish archives have shown that they had a fort and
colony at Port Royal in 1557, and about the same period, another in the
Chesapeake. There can be but little doubt that the story was true, and
that the ship contained Spaniards passing between these two places. They
also told curious stories of a great river 'Cipo,' where pearl was
obtained, which has puzzled later historians to locate; but we now know
that _Cipo_ or _Sepo_, in the Algonquin language, which was spoken from
Maine to about this point, means simply a river, and probably referred
to either the Moratio, now called the Roanoke, or to the Chowan.

These narratives give a glowing account of the natives and of their
ability to construct their houses and canoes and weirs for fish. As this
was their first intercourse with Europeans, it undoubtedly shows what
their true condition was and had been for centuries. Situated, as this
territory is, under a mild climate, where corn, beans, and melons can be
so easily raised, and having a great abundance of game and fish, it must
have been a paradise for the Indians. Of the king's brother, it is said: