This prince received him with much ceremony, ordered a rich repast to be set before him, and then adjudged him to suffer death by having his head laid on a stone and beaten to pieces with clubs.

[Illustration]

At the place appointed for his execution, Smith was again rescued from impending destruction by Pocahontas, the favourite daughter of the chief, who, finding her first entreaties disregarded, threw her arms round the prisoner, and declared her determination to save him or die with him.

Her generous compassion prevailed over the cruelty of her tribe, and the king not only gave Smith his life, but soon after sent him back to James Town, where the benificence of Pocahontas continued to follow him with supplies of provisions that delivered the colony from famine.

This eminent commander continued for some time to govern the colony with the greatest wisdom and prudence, when he received a dangerous wound from the accidental explosion of some gunpowder.  Completely disabled by this misfortune, and destitute of surgical aid in the colony, he was compelled to resign his command, and take his departure for England.  He never returned to Virginia again.

CHAPTER XIV.

Parley tells of the original native Americans.

I recollect when I was staying in America, an old Delaware Indian came to Boston to sell some skins and furs, and he called at the house where I was stopping.  He had once been a chief among the Indians, but was now poor.

I went to this Indian’s home, which was a little hut near Mount Holyoke.  We found his wife and his three children; two boys and a girl.  They came out to meet us, and were very glad to see their father and me.

I was very hungry and tired when I arrived.  The Indian’s wife roasted some bear’s flesh, and gave us some bread made of pounded corn, for our supper.

I then went to bed on some bear skins, and slept very well.  Early in the morning I was called to go hunting with the Indian and his two sons.  It was a fine bright morning in October.  The sun was shining on the tops of the mountains; we climbed Mount Holyoke, through the woods, and ascended a high rock, from which we could see a beautiful valley far below us, in the centre of which was the little town of Northampton, much smaller than it is now.

[Illustration]

“Do you see those houses?” said the Indian to me, “When my grandfather was a boy, there was not a house where you see so many:  that valley which now belongs to white men, belonged to red men.”

“Then the red men were rich and happy; now they are poor and wretched.  Then that beautiful river which you see running through the valley, and which is called the Connecticut, was theirs.  They owned these fine mountains too, they hunted in these woods, and fished in that river, and were numerous and powerful,—­now they are few and weak.”