[Illustration:  “Just the wild beauty of the shores, the noble expanse of the stream ...  And gadabout.”]

At last our houseboat came about the bend in the river and before us along the northern shore lay Jamestown Island, the site of old James Towne.  We could make out little yet but the low wooded shore and the wide opening that we knew was the mouth of Back River, the waterway that cuts off from the mainland that storied piece of soil.  Now Gadabout’s steering-wheel was counting spokes to starboard; she headed diagonally up the river toward the northern shore, and we were soon nearing the historic island.

So, here was where those three little ships, that we had been following at the respectful distance of three centuries, terminated their voyage; here was where that handful of colonists founded the first permanent English settlement in the New World; here was the cradle of our country.

However, the place in those old days was not exactly an island, although even the early colonists often called it so.  There was a low isthmus (that has since been washed away) connecting with the mainland; so that the site of the settlement was in reality a peninsula.  It was a low and marshy peninsula, an unhealthful place for the site of a colony.  The settlers had a hard time from the beginning.  They would have had a harder time but for the presence of a remarkable man among them.  He was one of the best of men, or he was one of the worst—­dependent upon which history you happen to pick up.  At all events, he was the man for the hour.  But for him the colony would have perished at the outset.  This man of course was the schoolboy’s hero, Captain John Smith.

The chief hardships of the colonists at first were scarcity of food and frequent Indian attacks.  To these were soon added a malarial epidemic caused by the unhealthful surroundings.  As if there were yet not suffering enough, the “Supplies” (the ships that came over with reinforcements and food) brought bubonic plague and cholera from English ports.  Often, if they had touched at the West Indies, they brought yellow fever too.  The sufferings in that little pioneer settlement of our country have scarcely been equalled in modern colonization.

Time went on; and the population waxed and waned as reinforcements built it up and as the terrible mortality cut it down again.  All the while there seemed no outcome to the struggle.  James Towne had in it not even the promise of a successful colony.  The settlers did not find the gold and precious stones that were expected, nor did they find or produce in quantities any valuable commodities.  They were not even self-supporting.  The colony held on because constantly fed with men and provisions by the “Supplies.”  There was dissatisfaction in London; in James Towne misery and often despair.  The climax of disappointment and suffering was reached in the spring of 1610, ever since known as the “Starving Time.”  In that season of horror, the settlement almost passed out of existence.