Richard of Jamestown Part 4

One of the most friendly of the savages, so Nathaniel said, having shown by making marks on the ground with his foot that he wished to tell our people about the country, and having been given a pen and paper, drew a map of the river with great care, putting in the islands and waterfalls and mountains that our men would come to, and afterward he even brought food to our people such as wheat and little sweet nuts and berries.

I myself would have been pleased to go on sh.o.r.e and see these strange people, but not being able to do so save at the cost of leaving my master, I can only repeat some of the curious things which Nathaniel Peac.o.c.k told me. It must be known that there was more than one nation, or tribe, of savages in this new land of Virginia, and each had its king or chief, who was called the werowance. I might set down the names of these tribes, and yet it would be so much labor lost, because they are more like fanciful than real words. As, for example, there were the Paspaheghes, whose werowance was seemingly more friendly to our people than were the others.

Again, there were the Rapahannas, who wore the legs of birds through holes in their ears, and had all the hair on the right side of their heads shaven closely.

It gives them much pleasure to dance, so Nathaniel said, he having seen them jumping around more like so many wolves, rather than human beings, for the s.p.a.ce of half an hour, shouting and singing all the while.

All the Indians smoked an herb called tobacco, which grows abundantly in this land, and I have Nathaniel's word for it that one savage had a tobacco pipe nearly a yard long, with the device of a deer carved at the great end of it big enough to dash out one's brains with.

There is very much more which might be said about these savages that would be of interest; but I am minded now to leave such stories for others to tell, and come to the day when Captain Newport was ready to sail with the Susan Constant and the Goodspeed back to England, for his share in the adventure was only to bring us over from England, after which he had agreed to return.

The pinnace was to be left behind for the use of us who remained in the strange land. Before this time, meaning the thirteenth day of May, the members of the Council had decided upon the place where we were to build our village. It was to be in the country of the Paspahegh Indians, at a certain spot near the sh.o.r.e where the water runs so deep that our ships can lie moored to the trees in six fathoms.

THE PEOPLE LAND FROM THE SHIPS

Then it was that all the people went on sh.o.r.e, some to set up the tents of cloth which we had brought with us to serve as shelters before houses could be built; others to lay out a fort, which it was needed should be made as early as possible because of the savages, and yet a certain other number being told off to stand guard against the brown men, who had already shown that they could be most dangerous enemies.

My master went ash.o.r.e, as a matter of course, with the others, I sticking close to his side; but neither of us taking any part in the work which had been begun, because the charges of wickedness were still hanging over his head.

Had Captain Smith been allowed a voice in the Council, certain it is he never would have chosen this place in which to make the town, for he pointed out to me that the land lay so low that when the river was at its height the dampness must be great, and, therefore, exceeding unhealthful, while there was back of it such an extent of forest, as made it most difficult to defend, in case the savages came against us.

Captain Smith aided me in building for ourselves a hut in front of an overhanging rock, with the branches of trees. It was a poor shelter at the best; but he declared it would serve us until such time as he was given his rightful place among the people, or had been sent back a prisoner to England.

CAPTAIN SMITH PROVEN INNOCENT

This served us as a living place for many days, or until my master was come into his own, as he did before the fort was finished, when, on one certain morning, he demanded of the other members of the Council that they put him on trial to learn whether the charges could be proven or not, and this was done on the day before Captain Newport was to take the ships back to England.

There is little need for me to say that Captain Kendall's stories of the plot, in which he said my master was concerned, came to naught. There were none to prove that he had ever spoken of such a matter, and the result of the trial was that they gave him his rightful place at the head of the company. Before many months were pa.s.sed, all came to know that but for him the white people in Jamestown would have come to their deaths.

WE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND

It was on the fifteenth day of June when the ships sailed out of the Chesapeake Bay, leaving on the banks of the river we called the James, a hundred men and boys, all told, to hold their lives and their liberty against thousands upon thousands of naked savages, who had already shown that they desired to be enemies rather than friends. Even in the eyes of a boy, it was an odd company to battle with the savages and the wilderness, for the greater number were those who called themselves gentlemen, and who believed it beneath their station to do any labor whatsoever, therefore did it seem to me that this new town would be burdened sorely with so many drones.

Master Hunt, the preacher, could in good truth call himself a gentleman, and yet I myself saw him, within two hours after we were landed, nailing a piece of timber between two trees that he might stretch a square of sailcloth over it, thus making what served as the first church in the country of Virginia. Yet Captain Smith has said again and again, that the discourses of Master Hunt under that poor shelter of cloth, were, to his mind, more like the real praising of G.o.d, than any he had ever heard in the costly buildings of the old world.

For the better understanding of certain things which happened to us after we had begun to build the village of Jamestown, it should be remembered that of all the savages in the country roundabout, the most friendly were those who lived in the same settlement with Powhatan, who was, so Captain Smith said, the true head and king of all the Indians in Virginia.

BAKING BREAD WITHOUT OVENS

It was in this town of Powhatan's that I discovered how to bake bread without an oven or other fire than what might be built on the open ground, and it was well I had my eyes open at that time, otherwise Captain Smith and I had gone supperless to bed again and again, for there were many days when our stomachs cried painfully because of emptiness.

While my master was talking with the king, Powhatan, on matters concerning affairs at Jamestown, I saw an Indian girl, whose name I afterward came to know was Pocahontas, making bread, and observed her carefully. She had white meal, but whether of barley, or the wheat called Indian corn, or Guinny wheat I could not say, and this she mixed into a paste with hot water; making it of such thickness that it could easily be rolled into little b.a.l.l.s or cakes.

After the mixture had been thus shaped, she dropped the b.a.l.l.s into a pot of boiling water, letting them stay there until well soaked, when she laid them on a smooth stone in front of the fire until they had hardened and browned like unto bread that has been cooked in the oven.

But I have set myself to the task of telling how we of Jamestown lived during that time when my master was much the same as the head of the government, and it is not well to begin the story with bread making.

AN UNEQUAL DIVISION OF LABOR

First I must explain upon what terms these people, the greater number of whom called themselves gentlemen, and therefore claimed to be ashamed to labor with their hands, had come together under control of those merchants in London, who were known as the London Company.

No person in the town of James was allowed to own any land except as he had his share of the whole. Every one was expected to work for the good of the village, and whatsoever of crops was raised, belonged to all the people. It was not permitted that the more industrious should plant the land and claim that which grew under their toil.

Ours was supposed to be one big family, with each laboring to help the others at the same time he helped himself, and the result was that those who worked only a single hour each day, had as much of the general stores as he who remained in the field from morning until night.

Although my master had agreed to this plan before the fleet sailed from England, he soon came to understand that it was not the best for a new land, where it was needed that each person should labor to the utmost of his powers.

The London Company had provided a certain number of tents made of cloth, which were supposed to be enough to give shelter to all the people, and yet, because those who had charge of the matter had made a mistake, through ignorance or for the sake of gain, there were no more than would provide for the members of the Council, who appeared to think they should be lodged in better fashion than those who were not in authority.

My master could well have laid claim to one of these cloth houses; but because of the charges which had been made against him by Captain Kendall and Captain Martin, the sting of which yet remained, he chose to live by himself. Thus it was that he and I threw up the roof of branches concerning which I have spoken; but it was only to shelter us until better could be built.

BUILDING A HOUSE OF LOGS

While the others were hunting here and there for the gold which it had been said could be picked up in Virginia as one gathers acorns in the old world, Captain Smith set about making a house of logs such as would protect him from the storms of winter as well as from the summer sun.

This he did by laying four logs on the ground in the form of a square, and so cutting notches in the ends of each that when it was placed on the top of another, and at right angles with it, the hewn portions would interlock, one with the other, holding all firmly in place. On top of these, other huge tree trunks were laid with the same notching of the ends. It was a vast amount of labor, thus to roll up the heavy logs in the form of a square until a pen or box had been made as high as a man's head, and then over that was built a roof of logs fastened together with wooden pins, or pegs, for iron nails were all too scarce and costly to be used for such purpose.

When the house had been built thus far, the roof was formed of no more than four or five logs on which a thatching of gra.s.s was to be laid later, and the ends, in what might be called the "peak of the roof,"

were open to the weather. Then it was that roughly hewn planks, or logs split into three or four strips, called puncheons, were pegged with wooden nails on the sides, or ends, where doors or windows were to be made.

Then the s.p.a.ce inside this framework was sawed out, and behold you had a doorway, or the opening for a window, to be filled in afterward as time and material with which to work might permit.

After this had been done, the ends under the roof were covered with yet more logs, sawn to the proper length and pegged together, until, save for the crevices between the timbers, the whole gave protection against the weather.

Then came the work of thatching the roof, which was done by the branches of trees, dried gra.s.s, or bark. My master put on first a layer of branches from which the leaves had been stripped, and over that we laid coa.r.s.e gra.s.s to the depth of six or eight inches, binding the same down with small saplings running from one side to the other, to the number of ten on each slope of the roof. To me was given the task of closing up the crevices between the logs with mud and gra.s.s mixed, and this I did the better because Nathaniel Peac.o.c.k worked with me, doing his full share of the labor.