another for Anacoana and her waiting women.”  The astonishment which the natives manifested at the appearance of the Dauphiny and her crew; their admiration of the simple toys and little bells which were offered them by the strangers; their practice of painting their bodies, adorning themselves with the gay plumage of birds, and habiting themselves with the skins of animals, seem all analogized, in the same way, from the accounts given by Peter Martyr of the inhabitant of the islands discovered by Columbus, and of the northern regions by Sebastian Cabot.  These traits of Indian life and character, therefore, not having been peculiar to the natives of the country described in the letter, and having been already mentioned in earlier accounts of the adjoining parts of America, the description of them here furnishes no proof of originality or of the truth of the letter for that reason.

On the other hand objects which historically belong to the inhabitants of the places declared to have been visited, and characterize them distinctly from those previously discovered, and which were of such a marked character as to have commanded attention, are not mentioned at all.  Of this class perhaps the most prominent is the wampum, a commodity of such value and use among them that, like gold among the Europeans, it served the double purpose of money and personal adornment.  The region of the harbor where the voyagers spent, according to the letter, fifteen days in familiar intercourse with the inhabitants, was its greatest mart, from which it was spread among the tribes, both north and east.  Wood, describing the Narragansets in 1634, says they “are the most curious minters of the wampompeage and mowhakes which they forme out of the inmost wreaths of periwinkle shels.  The northerne, easterne, and westerne Indians fetch all their coyne from these southern mint-masters.  From hence they have most of their curious pendants and bracelets; hence they have their great stone pipes which will hold a quarter of an ounce of tobacco.”  And in regard to their practice of ornamentation, he remarks again:  “although they be poore, yet is there in them the sparkes of naturall pride which appeares in their longing desire after many kinde of ornaments, wearing pendants in their eares, as formes of birds, beasts and fishes, carved out of bone, shels, and stone, with long bracelets of their curious wrought wampompeage and mowhackees which they put about their necks and loynes; which they count a rare kinde of decking.”  The same writer adds a description of an Indian king of this country in his attire, which is somewhat less fanciful than that in the letter.  “A sagamore with a humberd (humming-bird) in his eare for a pendant, a blackhawke in his occiput for his plume, mowhackees for his gold chaine, good store of wampompeage begirting his loynes, his bow in his hand, his quiver at his back, with six naked Indian spatterlashes at his heeles for his guard, thinkes himselfe little inferiour to