heah 'bout as soon
as de white folks."

It was a comfortable view to take of the matter, and we would not
disturb it.

Cornelius told us other things.

"Dis, now, is de off season for touris'," he explained. "We has two
mos' reg'lar seasons, de spring an' de fall, yas, suh. I drives right
many ovah heah from Willi'msburg. I's pretty sho to git hol' of de bes'
an' de riches'. An' I reckon I knows 'bout all dere is to be knowed
'bout dis firs' settlemen'. I's got it all so's I kin talk it off an'
take in de extry change. I don' know is you evah notice, but folks is
mighty diffrunt 'bout seem' dese ole things. Yas, suh, dey sut'n'y is.
Some what I drives jes looks at de towah an' nuver gits out de ker'ige;
an' den othahs jes peers into ev'ythin'. Foh myse'f, now, I nuver keers
much 'bout dese ole sceneries; but den I reckon I would ef I was rich."

CHAPTER VIII

PIONEER VILLAGE LIFE

That first little four-acre James Towne, located in the neighbourhood
of the present Confederate fort, soon outgrew its palisades. In what
may be called its typical days, the village stretched in a straggling
way for perhaps three quarters of a mile up and down the river front,
and with outlying parts reaching across the island to Back River. It
usually consisted of a church, a few public buildings, about a score of
dwellings, and perhaps a hundred people.

One of the principal streets (if James Towne's thoroughfares could be
called streets) ran close along the water front. While it must once
have had some shorter name, it has come down in the records as "the way
along the Greate River." Here and there traces of this highway can
still be found; and the mulberry trees now standing along the river
bank are supposed to be descendants of those that bordered the old
village highway. Next came Back Street upon which some prominent people
seem to have lived. Apparently leading across the head of the island
from the town toward the isthmus was the "old Greate Road." There still
appear some signs of this also near the graveyard. Besides these
highways there were several lanes and cart-paths.

The eastward extension of the village, called New Towne, was the
principal part. It was the fashionable and official quarter. Here lived
many "people of qualitye." Royal governors and ex-governors, knights
and members of the Council had their homes along the river front, where
they lived in all the state that they could transplant from "London
T