ented to remain, to await the arrival of fresh
colonists from the Mother Country.

Sir Walter Raleigh, still undiscouraged, in the next year 1587 sent out
another fleet containing a number of families as emigrants, with women
and children. When they arrived, they found Roanoke deserted. The
fifteen men had been murdered by the Indians in retaliation for the
murder of their chief and several of his warriors by the English. With
fear and trembling the new settlers decided to remain, urging the
friends who had accompanied them to hasten back to England with the
ships and bring them reinforcements and supplies. Scarcely had they
spread their sails on the return voyage ere war broke out with Spain. It
was three years before another ship crossed the ocean, to see what had
become of the colony. It had utterly disappeared. Though many attempts
were made to ascertain its tragic fate, all were unavailing. It is
probable that many were put to death by the Indians, and perhaps the
children were carried far back into the interior and incorporated into
their tribes. This bitter disappointment seemed to paralyse the energies
of colonization. For more than seventy years the Carolinas remained a
wilderness, with no attempt to transfer to them the civilization of the
Old World. Still English ships continued occasionally to visit the
coast. Some came to fish, some to purchase furs of the Indians, and
some for timber for shipbuilding. The stories which these voyagers told
on their return, kept up an interest in the New World. It was indeed an
attractive picture which could be truthfully painted. The climate was
mild, genial and salubrious. The atmosphere surpassed the far-famed
transparency of Italian skies. The forests were of gigantic growth, more
picturesquely beautiful than any ever planted by man's hand, and they
were filled with game. The lakes and streams swarmed with fish. A
wilderness of flowers, of every variety of loveliness, bloomed over the
wide meadows and the broad savannahs, which the forest had not yet
invaded. Berries and fruits were abundant. In many places the soil was
surpassingly rich, and easily tilled; and all this was open, without
money and without price, to the first comer.

Still more than a hundred years elapsed after the discovery of these
realms, ere any permanent settlement was effected upon them. Most of the
bays, harbors and rivers were unexplored, and reposed as it were in the
solemn silence of eternity.