ok their way up a "Greate
River," bringing to it practically the first touch of civilization and
establishing upon its shore the first permanent English settlement in
the New World--the birthplace of our country.

The civilizers began their work promptly. Even as they sailed up the
river looking for a place to found their colony, they robbed the stream
of its Indian name, Powhatan, that so befitted the bold, tawny flow,
bestowing instead the name of the puerile King of England. That was the
first step toward writing in English the story of the James River, the
"Greate River," the "King's River."

It was later by three hundred years lacking one when our houseboat came
along to gather up that story. But to our regret it was not springtime.
The dogwood blossoms had come and gone when Gadabout lay behind Craney
Island; and she would start upon her cruise up the James in the heart
of the summertime.

In some way that only those who know the laze of houseboating can
understand, the hours slipped by in that tiny, tucked-away haven, and
it was the middle of the afternoon when Gadabout slowly felt her way
out from behind the island and started up the James in the wake of the
Sarah Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery. That historic wake we
were to follow for the first thirty miles of our journey, when it would
bring us to the spot on the bank of the river where those first
colonists landed and built their little settlement which (still
honouring an unworthy king) they called James Towne.

As Gadabout sturdily headed her stubby bow up the wide, majestic
waterway, we looked about us. After all, what had three centuries done
to this gateway of American civilization? Surely not very much. Keeping
one's eyes in the right direction it was easy to blot out three hundred
years, and to feel that we were looking upon about the same scene that
those first colonists beheld--just the primeval waste of rolling
waters, lonely marsh, and wooded shore.

But eyes are unruly things; and, to be sure, there were other
directions in which to look. Glances northward took in a scene
different enough from the one that met the eyes of those early
voyagers.

Upon the low point of land along which they at last found a channel
into the James and which (in their relief) they named Point Comfort,
now stood a huge modern hostelry.

To the left of this, the ancient shore-line was now broken by a dull,
square structure that reared its ugly bulk ag