The Indians at the east did not build cities, but lived in small villages.  These villages were made up of huts, covered with the bark of trees.  Such huts were called wigwams.  The women did nearly all the work, such as building the wigwams and hoeing corn and tobacco.  The men hunted and made war.  Instead of guns the Indians had bows and arrows.  With these they could bring down a deer or a squirrel quite as well as a white man could now with a rifle.  They had no iron, but made hatchets and knives out of sharp, flat stones.  They never built roads, for they had no wagons, and at the east they did not use horses; but they could find their way with ease through the thickest forest.  When they came to a river they swam across it, so they had no need of bridges.  For boats they made canoes of birch bark.  These canoes were almost as light as paper, yet they were very strong and handsome, and they

      “floated on the river
  Like a yellow leaf in autumn,
  Like a yellow water-lily."[3]

In them they could go hundreds of miles quickly and silently.  So every river and stream became a roadway to the Indian.

[Illustration:  Building A wigwam.]

[Footnote 3:  Longfellow’s Hiawatha (Hiawatha’s Sailing).]

41.  Captain Smith goes in search of the Pacific; he is captured by Indians.—­After that first long, hot summer was over, some of the settlers wished to explore the country and see if they could not find a short way through to the Pacific Ocean.  Captain Smith led the expedition.  The Indians attacked them, killed three of the men, and took the captain prisoner.  To amuse the Indians, Smith showed them his pocket compass.  When the savages saw that the needle always pointed toward the north they were greatly astonished, and instead of killing their prisoner they decided to take him to their chief.  This chief was named Powhatan.[4] He was a tall, grim-looking old man, and he hated the settlers at Jamestown, because he believed that they had come to steal the land from the Indians.

[Illustration:  Pocket compass.]

[Footnote 4:  Powhatan (Pow-ha-tan’).]

42.  Smith’s life is saved by Pocahontas;[5] her marriage to John Rolfe.[6]—­Smith was dragged into the chief’s wigwam; his head was laid on a large, flat stone, and a tall savage with a big club stood ready to dash out his brains.  Just as Powhatan was about to cry “strike!” his daughter Pocahontas, a girl of twelve or thirteen, ran up, and, putting her arms round the prisoner’s head, she laid her own head on his—­now let the Indian with his uplifted club strike if he dare.[7]

Instead of being angry with his daughter, Powhatan promised her that he would spare Smith’s life.  When an Indian made such a promise as that he kept it, so the captain knew that his head was safe.  Powhatan released his prisoner and soon sent him back to Jamestown, and Pocahontas, followed by a number of Indians, carried to the settlers presents of corn and venison.