In describing the country which they reached at the end of the fifty leagues north of the landfall, that is, near the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia, where they discovered the old woman and girl concealed in the grass and found the land generally, “abounding in forests filled with various kinds of trees but not of such fragrance” as those where they first landed, the writer gives a particular description of the condition in which they found the vines and flowers.

“We saw,” he says, “many vines there growing naturally, which run upon, and entwine about the trees, as they do in Lombardy, and which if the husbandmen were to have under a perfect system of cultivation, would without doubt produce the best Wines, because tasting (beendo, literally, drinking or sucking) the fruit many times, we perceived it was sweet and pleasant, not different from ours.  They are held in estimation by them because wherever they grow they remove the small trees around them in order that the fruit may be able to germinate.  We found wild roses, violets, lilies and many species of plants and odoriferous flowers, different from ours.” [Footnote:  “Vedenimo in quella molte vite della natura prodotte, quali alzando si avvoltano agli alberi come nella Cisalpina Gallia custumano; le quali se dagli agricultori avessimo el perfetto ordine di cultura, senza dubbio produrrebbono ottimi vini, perche piu volte il frutto di quello beendo, veggiendo suave e dolce, non dal nostro differente sono da loro tenuti in extimatione; impero che per tutto dove nascono, levano gli arbusculi circustanti ad causa il frutto possa gierminare.  Trovamo rose silvestre et vivuole, gigli et molte sorte di erbe e fiori odoriferi da nostri differenti.”]

The flavor and vinous qualities of the grapes are thus particularly mentioned as having been proven several times by eating the ripe and luscious fruit, and in language peculiarly expressive of the fact.  According to the dates before given, this must have occurred early in the month of April, as the scene is laid upon the coast of North Carolina.  There is no native vine which ever flowers in this country, north of latitude thirty-four, before the month of May, and none that ripens its fruit before July, which is the month assigned by Lawson for the ripening of the summer fox grape in the swamps and moist lands of North Carolina,—­the earliest of all the grapes in that region. [Footnote:  New Voyage to Carolina, p. 602.] North of latitude 41 Degrees no grape matures until the latter part of August.  As the explorers are made to have left the shores of Newfoundland for home in June, at farthest, they were at no time on any part of the coast, in season to have been able to see or taste the ripe or unripe fruit of the vine.  The representation of the letter in this respect depending both upon the sight and the taste, must, like that of the contrasted appearance of the natives, be regarded as deliberately made; and consequently, the two as establishing the falsity of the description in those particulars, and thus involving the integrity and truth of the whole.