ary of the
Chowan to 'where it groweth to be as narrow as the Thames between
Lambeth and Westminster,' and so on, and turning into the Blackwater,
which he would have navigated probably to where it is now crossed by the
railroad, he would have been within fifty or sixty miles of the bay.
While we write, General Burnside is pursuing the same route, not to
capture from a savage tribe, but from a rebellious and traitorous
people, the same domain.

The same chief or king gave Lane a fanciful account of the Moratio
river, which we now call the Roanoke. He says:

'This river opens into the broad sound of Weapomeiok, (Albemarle,)
and the other rivers and sounds show no current, but in calm
weather are moved by the wind. This river of Moratio has so swift
a current from the West, that I thought it would with oars scarce
be navigable; the current runs as strong as at London bridge. The
savages do report strange things of the head of the river, which
was thirty days' voyage; that it springs out of a great rock, and
makes a most violent stream; and that this rock stands so near
unto the South Sea, that in storms the waves beat into the stream
and make it brackish.'

This river he afterward explored. But ere long, either from oppression
or fear of the English, the Indians assumed a hostile attitude, and laid
plans to surprise them. The English had to be continually on their
guard, and in the mean time famine compelled them to leave Roanoke in
large parties, to obtain subsistence from the corn-fields, or proceed
along the coast for shell-fish.

About the first of June, 1586, Lane, with a party, left the island,
proceeding across the sound, and by a stratagem, hardly authorized in an
honorable soldier, captured and killed the chief of the country and many
of his people.

In the mean time, he was on the look-out for ships from England, with
supplies, and had sent Captain Stafford, with a party, to 'Croatan,'
probably at or near what is now known as Cape Lookout, to discover their
approach. Suddenly, he reported a great fleet of twenty sail in sight,
which proved to be the squadron commanded by the celebrated Sir Francis
Drake, who was returning from one of his expeditions among the Spanish
settlements in the West-Indies. When Drake left England, he was directed
to look after Raleigh's colony, and had accordingly brought a letter to
Lane. He anchored his fleet opposite Roanoke, (probably ju