Of course the hero was Captain John Smith.  How that man does brighten up the record of those old times!  Well, one day the Captain with a small party from James Towne was hunting in the marshes of the Chickahominy for food, or adventure, or the South Sea, or something, and some Indians were hunting there also; and the Indians captured the Captain.  They took him before the great chief Powhatan; and as John lay there, with a large stone under his head and some clubs waving above him, the general impression was that he was going to die.  But that was not John’s way in those days; he was always in trouble but he never died.  Suddenly, just as the clubs were about to descend, soft arms were about the Captain’s head, and Pocahontas, the favourite daughter of the old chief, was pleading for the ever-lucky Smith.  The dramatic requirements of the case were apparent to everybody.  Powhatan spared the pale-face; and our country had its first romance.

To be sure, some people say that all this never happened.  Indeed the growing skepticism about this precious bit of our history, this international romance that began in the marshes of the Chickahominy, is our chief reason for repeating it here.  It is time for the story to be told by those who can vouch for it—­those who have actually seen the river that flows by the marshes that the Captain was captured in.

On we went with tide, wind, and engines carrying us up the James.  Dancing Point reached sharply out as if to intercept us.  But the owner of those strong dark hands that happened to be at the wheel knew the story of Dancing Point—­of how many an ebony Tam O’Shanter had seen ghostly revelry there; and Gadabout was held well out in the river.

Again, how completely we had the James to ourselves!  We thought of how, even back in those old colonial days, our little craft would have had more company.  Here, with slender bows pushing down stream, the Indian canoes went on their way to trade with the settlers at James Towne; their cargoes varying with the seasons—­fish from their weirs in the moon of blossoms, and, in the moon of cohonks, limp furred and feathered things and reed-woven baskets of golden maize.  Returning, the red men would have the axes, hatchets, and strange articles that the pale-faces used, and the cherished “blew” beads that the Cape Merchant had given them in barter.

Here sailed the little shallops of the colonists as they explored and charted this unknown land.  A few years later and, with rhythmic sway of black bodies and dip of many oars, came the barges of the river planters.  Right royally came the lords of the wilderness—­members of the Council perhaps, and in brave gold-laced attire—­dropping down with the ebb tide to the tiny capital in the island marshes.  And up the stream came ships from “London Towne,” spreading soft white clouds of canvas where sail was never seen before; and carrying past the naked Indian in his tepee the sweet-scented powders and the rose brocade that the weed of his peace-pipe had bought for the Lady of the Manor.