nk of
the gentle Apotomax, up which stream, we read, Captain Smith was first
conveyed by his captors, and close by high-water mark was he landed,
preparatory to his being burned _pour amuser le roi_.

The tide flows just above the town; and to this spot I strolled, and sat
me down where the velvet sward rests on the stream. "And to this very
spot, perchance," said I, "did the canoes of the warriors of Powhatan
bring their most dreaded, and, consequently, best esteemed enemy, to
die the death of a thrice-honoured Brave, or, in terms more homely, to
be put to as much torture as the utmost of savage ingenuity could
devise; and this prolonged as far as the nature of the captive might
endure."

A RHAPSODY.

"And as I sat, the birdis harkening thus,
Methought that I herd voicis suddainly."
CHAUCER.

Here, closing my eyes on the sloops, lighters, and schooners lying at no
great distance, and barring my ears against the cries of busy carmen and
wharfingers, and the clanging of steam-engines, I calmly set about
surveying in my mind's eye the group which ready imagination conjured up
in colours, if not as true, at least as glowing, as the by-gone reality.

About rose the forest-crowned slopes,--for this is a region of hill and
dell,--with small green belts of meadow drawn between: along the river
glided, with an arrow-like track, the light canoes, when, as they touch
this sylvan harbour, the until now well-suppressed joy of victory
bursts out in exulting shouts and yells wildly terrific;--the solitude
is awakened, the slumbering villages are roused, and the well-known cry
of Indian triumph comes back from every teeming hill; whilst the roused
deer springs trembling, from his covert, and the fierce panther
crouching seeks his gloomiest lair.

The adventurous captain, to whom peril was as a household word, and fear
a term unknown, is now unbound, and led on shore, walking with a free
step among his captors and with a cheek unblanched, casting proud
scornful looks upon forms and faces which might have scared the devil;
for the roused Indian--cowed as is his present nature by a hard-bought
conviction of his inferiority--is yet a fearful object to behold when
decked in paint and plume and all his horribly fantastic war array.

The next scene presented the assembled council and the prolonged debate;
the warriors' detail of their long secret marches, con