prize.

The settlers, thus left to their own resources, seem to have done little
in the all-important task of clearing the country and planting corn for
future necessities. Ralph Lane had been appointed governor, a man
uniting military knowledge with experience in the sea. He undertook
several voyages of exploration, penetrated north as far as Elizabeth
River and a town on Chesapeake Bay, and south to Secotan, eighty leagues
from Roanoke. But his most famous expedition was up Albemarle Sound and
the Chowan River, of his adventures in which he has himself given us a
description in a letter preserved by Captain Smith. The King of the
Chawanooks was known by the title of Menatonon. He was lame in one of
his lower limbs, but his spirit seems to have been one of uncommon
activity and shrewdness. He told the credulous English of a country,
four days' journey beyond them, where they might hope for abundant
riches.

This country lay on the sea; and its king, from the waters around his
island retreat, drew magnificent pearls in such numbers that they were
commonly used in his garments and household conveniences. Instantly the
fancies of the eager listeners were fired with the hope of attaining
this wealth; and notwithstanding the scarcity of food, and the danger of
an assault by "two or three thousand" savages, they continued to toil up
the river. They labored on until they had nothing for sustenance except
two dogs of the mastiff species and the sassafras leaves which grew in
great abundance around them. Upon this inviting fare they were fain to
nourish their bodies, while their souls were fed upon the hope of
finally entering this region of pearls; but at length, in a state near
to starvation, they returned to Roanoke, having made no discovery even
so valuable as a copper spring high up the Chowan River, concerning
which the Indians had excited their hopes.

Thomas Heriot employed his time in researches more rational than those
which sought for pearls amid the wilderness of America. He intermingled
freely with the Indian tribes, studied their habits, their manners,
their language, and origin. He sought to teach them a theology more
exalted than the fancies of their singular superstition, and to expand
their minds by a display of the instruments of European science. He
acquired a vast fund of information as to the state of the original
country, its people and its products, and to his labors we may yet be
indebted in the prog