r colony's mission was ended.
It was not destined to have any place in the great nation that its
struggle had made possible. One by one the lights in the poor little
windows flickered and went out. The deserted hearthstones grew cold.
Abandoned and forgotten, the pitiful hamlet crumbled away.

James Towne dead, the island gradually fell into fewer hands until it
became, as it is to-day, the property of a single owner; simply a
plantation like any other. And yet, how unlike! Even were every vestige
of that pioneer settlement gone forever, memory would hold this island
a place apart. But all is not gone. Despite decay and the greedy river,
there yet remains to us a handful of ruins of vanished James Towne.
Despite a nation's shameful neglect, time has spared to her some relics
of the community that gave her birth--a few broken tombs and the
crumbling, tower of the old village church. Every year come many of our
people to look upon these ancient ruins and to pause in the midst of
hurried lives to recall again their story.

[Illustration: AN EXCURSION DAY AT JAMESTOWN ISLAND.]

CHAPTER IX

GOOD-BYE TO OLD JAMES TOWNE

Two or three times we ran the houseboat around in front of the island.
On one occasion we took the notion to stop at places of interest along
the way. Upon coming out from Back River, we spent some time poking
about in the water for the old-time isthmus. We were not successful at
first and almost feared that, after raising it for our own selfish
purposes some days before, we had let it go down again in the wrong
place.

This troubled us the more because we had hoped to settle a vexed
question as to how wide an isthmus had once connected the island with
the mainland. Nautica insisted that the width had been ten paces
because a woman, Mrs. An. Cotton, who once lived near James Towne, had
said so. But the Commodore pointed out that we had never seen Mrs.
Cotton, and that we did not know whether she was a tall woman or a
little dumpy woman; and so could not have the slightest idea of how far
ten paces would carry her. On his part, he pinned his faith to the
statement of Strachey, a man who had lived in James Towne and who had
said that the isthmus was no broader than "a man will quaite a
tileshard." But this Nautica refused to accept as satisfactory because
we did not know what a "tileshard" was nor how far a man would "quaite"
one. So we were naturally anxious to see which of us was right.

[Illu