re she
sate her downe; and with her came her principall Indians in other barges,
which did wait vpon her. She went to the place where the Gouernour was,
and at her comming she made this speech following:
Excellent Lord, I wish this comming of your Lordship into these your
Countries, to be most happie: although my power be not answerable to my
wil, and my seruices be not according to my desire, nor such as so high a
Prince, as your Lordship, deserueth; yet since the good will is rather to
be accepted, then all the treasures of the world, that without it are
offered, with most vnfaileable and manifest affection, I offer you my
person, lands, and subiects, and this small seruice.
And therewithal she presented vnto him great store of clothes of the
Countrie, which shee brought in other canoes; to wit, mantles and skinnes;
and tooke from her owne necke a great cordon of perles, and cast it about
the necke of the Gouernour, entertaining him with very gracious speeches
of loue and courtesie, and commanded canoes to be brought thither, wherein
the Gouernour and his people passed the Riuer. (M623) Assoone as hee was
lodged in the towne, she sent him another present of many hens. This
Countrie was verie pleasant, fat, and hath goodly meadows by the Riuers.
Their woods are thin, and ful of Walnut trees and Mulberrie trees. They
said the sea was two daies journey from thence. Within a league, and a
halfe a league about this towne, was great townes dispeopled, and
ouergrowne with grasse; which shewed, that they had been long without
inhabitants. The Indians said, that two yeere before there was a plague in
that countrie, and that they remooued to other townes. There was in their
storehouses great quantitie of clothes, mantles of yarne made of the
barkes of trees, and others made of feathers, white, greene red, and
yellow, very fine after their vse, and profitable for winter. There were
also many Deeres skinnes, with many compartiments traced in them, and some
of them made into hose, stockings and shooes. And the Ladie perceiuing,
that the Christians esteemed the perles, aduised the Gouernour to send to
search certaine graues that were in that towne, and that hee should find
many: and that if hee would send to the dispeopled townes, hee might load
all his horses. They sought the graues of the towne, and there found
fourteene rooues of perles, and little babies and birdes made of them. The
people were browne, well made, and well pro
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