ENTERPRISE BEYOND THE SEAS.
 
 DEATH OF SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 
 
 Pace 33.
 
 ENTERPRISE 
 
 BEYOND THE SEAS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 HOW GREAT COLONIES WERE 'FOUNDED. 
 
 J. HAMILTON FYFE, 
 
 AI'THoU OF "TIIH'MPIIS OF INVENTION AND DISCOVERY. 
 
 LONDON: 
 T. XELSOX AND SONS, PATERXOSTER ROW; 
 
 EDINBl'KGH ; AM) XK\V YOKK. 
 1874.
 
 StacI 
 
 Annex 
 
 TV 
 
 1012. 
 
 |N the history of the world," says Bancroft, 
 "many pages are devoted to commemo- 
 rate the men who have besieged cities, 
 subdued provinces, or overthrown empires : in the 
 eye of reason and of truth, a colony is a better 
 offering than a victory." In no field of enterprise 
 have the courage, perseverance, and humanity of our 
 countrymen been more conspicuously or honourably 
 displayed than in the planting and rearing of our 
 colonies. It has been said that the Anglo-Saxon 
 race has a peculiar aptitude for the work of coloni- 
 zation ; and, certainly, the success with which it has 
 accommodated itself to changes of climate, gamed 
 the confidence and attachment of the natives, and 
 developed the resources of virgin lands, confirms 
 the idea. The behaviour of our countrymen towards 
 the aborigines of the various countries in which they 
 have settled has not been free from cruelty and 
 deceit ; but, on the whole, we must admit that it 
 
 2201669
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 redounds to their credit, especially when we reflect 
 on the provocations which they received, and the 
 liability to misconception on both sides. Our first 
 attempts at colonization were accompanied by the 
 most formidable difficulties and the most overwhelm- 
 ing disasters ; but the brave and steadfast spirit of 
 the "planters" did not quail before accumulated 
 calamities. " The ice," said one true-hearted English- 
 man struggling in a frail bark through a sea of 
 crashing icebergs "the ice is strong, but God is 
 stronger." Such was the mood in which the early 
 settlers faced their work. Famine, pestilence, raging 
 elements, treacherous savages, and jealous rivals were 
 strong to harass and destroy ; but the Lord their 
 God, in whom they had in their rough wayward 
 hearts an intensely earnest and practical faith, was 
 stronger still to deliver them from evil, and to crown 
 with success those enterprises which they had under- 
 taken, not from a mere lust of gold, but in no mean 
 measure for the glory of His name and the advance- 
 ment of His kingdom among the heathen. Nor did 
 they trust in vain. There were few of the pioneers 
 of that great plantation work who could not match 
 Increase Mather's " Catalogue of Remarkable Provi- 
 dences," in the story of their own eventful lives. 
 
 This little volume is not a systematic history. It 
 is merely a series of sketches, intended to illustrate
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 British colonization in some of its social and romantic 
 aspects. It does not trench on questions of politics or 
 economy, it avoids statistics. It does not treat of 
 all of our colonies. It traces the career only of those 
 which bear a sort of representative character, and only 
 up to the point when the growing plantation subsides 
 into a settled province. The events herein recorded 
 are deeply interesting in themselves, and become still 
 more so when they are connected with the prosperity 
 of our empire and the spread of civilization and 
 Christianity. They also possess another interest for 
 the reflective reader. It has been remarked that it 
 is a peculiarity of a great and conquering people, that 
 they find themselves at the same time, though in 
 different regions, in all the various stages through 
 which societies must pass between their birth and 
 their destruction. Thus, in Vancouver's Island and 
 Columbia the British race may be said to be in 
 vigorous infancy ; in Australia, in early youth ; in 
 Canada, in all the vigour of manhood ; in the United 
 States, energetic, progressive, triumphant ; and in 
 Great Britain, in robust middle age. A general 
 survey of our colonial annals may thus be as useful 
 as a course of universal history, and may serve to 
 illustrate, in a striking manner, the causes of the 
 stability or decay of commonwealths. 
 
 J. H. F.
 
 THB FIRST ENGLISH COLONY 
 
 1. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, .. .. .. .. .. 11 
 
 2. The Voyage of the Golden Hind, .. .. .. .. 19 
 
 THE FOUNDATION OP VIRGINIA 
 
 1. Eoanoke, .. .. .. .. 31 
 
 2. Captain John Smith, .. .. .. .. 39 
 
 3. Sunshine and Shade, .. .. .. .. 67 
 
 THE COLONIZATION OP NEW ENGLAND 
 
 1. The Pilgrim Fathers, .. .. .. .. 69 
 
 2. New Plymouth, .. .. .. 76 
 
 3. Massachusetts, .. .. .. .. 84 
 
 4. The English and the Indians, .. .. .. 89 
 
 PENN AND PENNSYLVANIA, .. .. .. 97 
 
 THE SCOTTISH COLONY OF DAKIEN 
 
 1. William Paterson, .. .. .. U5 
 
 2. The First Expedition, .. .. .. ..120 
 
 3. The Disasters at Darien, .. .. .. .. 125 
 
 DOMINION OP CANADA 
 
 I.Canada, .. .. .. .. 137 
 
 2. Rupert's Land and the Bed River Territory, .. 144 
 
 3. Vancouver's Island and British Columbia, .. .. 147 
 
 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT 
 
 1. Botany Bay, .. .. ..157 
 
 2. The Australian Pastures, . . . . 166 
 
 3. The Gold Diggings, .. .. .. ..176 
 
 4. The Australian Interior, .. .. .. 185
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 THE BRITAIN OP THE SOUTH 
 
 1. The Islands of New Zealand, .. .. .. .. 203 
 
 2. Progress of the Colony, .. .. .. .. .. 208 
 
 THE CAPE AND SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 1. The Boers, .. .. .. .. .. .. 217 
 
 2. The False Prophet of the Kaffirs, .. .. .. .. 223 
 
 PITCAIBN'S ISLAND, .. .. .. .. .. 233 
 
 APPENDIX, .. .. .. .. .. 243
 
 I. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 
 II. THE VOYAGE OF THE GOLDEN HIND.
 
 Jfirst <tt0lislj 
 
 I. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 
 
 |T was in the stirring days of Queen Elizabeth 
 that England first engaged in what Bacon 
 calls the " ancient and heroical work of plan- 
 tation." The reign of the Virgin Monarch was just 
 one of those epochs when the old limits of thought and 
 habitation begin to appear narrow and confined, and 
 when men long to overleap and range beyond them. 
 Under the noontide blaze of the " new light" of the 
 Reformers, the old religion had become but " darkness 
 visible/' The firmament, which before had seemed 
 but a flat canopy above the earth, had sunk back 
 "into a region of boundless space. A whole hemi- 
 sphere had been discovered in the west. A new 
 heaven and a new earth, as it were, had been 
 brought within human ken. All old notions were 
 
 O 
 
 upset, all old routine was broken through ; and at 
 the same time that fresh fields of speculation and 
 enterprise were thrown invitingly open, the ancient 
 standing-ground gave way, and the accustomed occu- 
 pations fell into decline. Feudalism had been over-
 
 12 THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY. 
 
 thrown. The feudal lords no longer required to 
 maintain an army of retainers. The abbeys no 
 longer yielded support to a legion of monks and 
 mendicants. In spite of legislative prohibition, the 
 great sheep-farms were spreading over the country, 
 swallowing up even villages and hamlets, and de- 
 priving the rustic population of its accustomed 
 means of support. Agriculture was therefore declin- 
 ing. Manufactures had scarcely begun to occupy 
 the people. England was at peace ; a standing army 
 had not yet been invented ; and continental cam- 
 paigns offered but a scant outlet for the hot -bloods 
 of the nation. With employment languishing, and 
 population increasing, men were falling into crime 
 from sheer want of work : " Witness," says Hakluyt, 
 " twenty tall fellows hanged last Rochester assizes 
 for small robberies." Thus everything conspired to 
 give an impulse to the search for occupation abroad. 
 The direction of the search was determined by the 
 magnetic attraction of gold. Europe was still ring- 
 ing with the brilliant successes of the Spaniards, who, 
 in seventeen short years, had overrun territories 
 of immense extent, inhabited by numerous nations 
 under regular governments, and teeming, not only 
 with the most luxuriant vegetation, but with the 
 most precious metals. Nothing was talked of among 
 the active and daring spirits of the time but the 
 riches and beauty of that new world, which was a 
 Paradise above ground and an Ophir below. Reports
 
 DREAMS OF EL DORADO. 13 
 
 were continually arriving of the discovery of new 
 lands and nations, and the opening of virgin mines 
 of wealth. These things, we know, did not lack 
 embellishment in the tales of travellers ; but there 
 was so large a proportion of proved and acknow- 
 ledged truth in all the falsehoods that were coined, 
 that people at home found it difficult to separate 
 fact from fiction, arid invested those distant regions 
 with all the marvels of fairy-land. Sceptics might 
 shake their heads over stories of trees that bore gems 
 for fruit, birds that laid golden eggs, and sheep that 
 wore a golden fleece, fountains of perpetual youth, 
 and hordes of Amazons ; but the multitude lent them 
 an eager and confiding ear, and even men of 
 learning and travel were beguiled by some of 
 them. Indeed, down to the last century many 
 believed the legend of the golden city of Manoa, 
 where Indians, decked with strings of pearls, and 
 powdered from head to foot with shining gold dust, 
 disported in pleasure-gardens full of "all kinds of 
 herbs, flowers, and trees, of gold and silver." All 
 this inflamed alike the curiosity and cupidity of 
 Europe. The combined romance and profit of a 
 voyage Westward, ho ! were irresistible to men of 
 eveiy class. The scholar deserted his university, the 
 courtier forsook the presence-chamber, the lawyer 
 abandoned his files and parchments, while the chemist 
 threw aside his crucibles, and owned that the true 
 philosopher's stone was the compass which led him
 
 14 TUB FIRST ENGLISH COLONY. 
 
 to the great western continent. Every adventurer 
 flattered himself with the hope of bestowing his name 
 upon a new land of promise, over which he would 
 rule as viceroy ; or, at least, of gaining fame and for- 
 tune at a stroke by the capture of a huge Spanish 
 carrack bursting with precious plate. 
 
 The thirst for gold was, undoubtedly, the great 
 agent in promoting voyages of discovery, and in pre- 
 paring the way for colonization. Just as the search 
 for the philosopher's stone and the elixir vitce led 
 the alchemists to the discovery of important principles 
 in chemistry and medicine, so did the pursuit of El 
 Dorado conduct adventurers to the great work of 
 " plantation." But while the multitude was intent 
 upon the glittering bait, there were not wanting men 
 who had truer and nobler conceptions of the mission 
 to be achieved in that wonderful new world, and 
 who, in their earnest philanthropy, saw in the pos- 
 session of a virgin land the means, not only of pro- 
 viding an outlet for our surplus population, but of 
 conveying to the natives the benefits of civilization 
 and the consolations of Christianity, 
 
 In the early days of Elizabeth's reign there stood 
 an old manor-house at Greenaway, on a narrow 
 tongue of land shooting out into the deep waters of 
 the River Dart, in which one might have often seen, 
 engaged in earnest conference on this great subject, 
 a knot of men, destined to become not the least bril- 
 liant stars in that galaxy of noble spirits which illus-
 
 ELIZABETHAN WORTHIES. 15 
 
 trated tlje age, and which still glows on the field of 
 history like the Milky Way in the heavens. One can 
 fancy the group. There is Walter Raleigh, whose 
 lofty forehead, piercing eye, and resolute mouth, re- 
 move the suspicion of foppery which his rich fantastic 
 dress is apt to excite. Young in years, he has already 
 given a foretaste of that power and versatility of 
 mind, that force of character which afterwards made 
 him one of the most eminent and many-sided men of 
 his period, soldier, sailor, scholar, courtier, orator, 
 poet, philosopher, explorer of new lands and founder 
 of new states. Beside him is his elder and half- 
 brother, Humphrey Gilbert, whose serene and open 
 countenance, bright kindly eye, and sanguine tem- 
 perament, reveal the pure, unselfish, high-minded 
 spirit of the man whose whole life was spent for the 
 good of others, and formed the best commentary on 
 his own noble saying : " Never mislike with me for 
 taking in hand any laudable and honest enterprise ; 
 for if through pleasure or idleness we purchase shame, 
 the pleasure vanisheth, but the shame abideth for 
 ever : give me leave, therefore, without offence, 
 always to live and die in this mind ; for that he is 
 not worthy to live at all that, for fear or danger of 
 death, shunneth his country's service and his own 
 honour, seeing that death is inevitable, and the fame 
 of virtue immortal, wherefore in this behalf, mutare 
 vel timere sperno." There is Adrian Gilbert, too, full 
 of faith in his elder brother Humphrey ; and Richard
 
 16 THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY. 
 
 Grenville, fiery and valorous, readier with his 
 hand than his head to aid the scheme his friends 
 have at heart. Over in France, and in the Low 
 Countries, where he has been fighting for the Pro- 
 testants, Raleigh has heard many a dark tale con- 
 cerning the atrocities of the Spaniards in the fair new 
 world, on which they had alighted as a curse ; how 
 De Soto and his men, going up into a mountain to 
 pray, suddenly came down, in sheer wanton thirst 
 for blood, to hack and slay the unoffending, helpless 
 Indians ; how a Franciscan monk, who was with 
 another expedition, with his own eyes saw above 
 forty thousand natives perish by the edge of the 
 sword, or in the fangs of savage dogs ; how there 
 were regions where you might journey for days with 
 trees around you heavy with the bodies of Indians 
 who had hanged themselves, in families and tribes, 
 to escape the unspeakable cruelties of the invaders. 
 One can fancy Raleigh recounting such things, and 
 breaking forth into the exclamation which afterwards 
 found its place among the " Incitements" to the 
 Guinea colony : " If the Castilians, pretending a re- 
 ligious care of planting Christianity in those parts, 
 have in their doings preached nought else than 
 avarice, rapine, blood, death and destruction to those 
 naked and sheep-like creatures of God, erecting statues 
 and trophies of victory unto themselves in the 
 slaughter of millions of innocents, doth not the cry 
 of the poor succourless ascend unto the heavens ?
 
 HUMPHREY GILBERT'S IDEA. 17 
 
 Truly we have a work in this place, instead of 
 Papistry, to make the sincere light of the gospel to 
 shine on this people." On many a weary march, 
 on many a night-long watch by the flickering camp- 
 tire, Raleigh, and his clever, " over-voluble " friend, 
 Colonel Bingham, had debated the prospects of a plan- 
 tation in America. Humphrey Gilbert, too, had had 
 his thoughts on the matter. Led by the associations 
 of his childhood to be fond of a sea life, he had mastered 
 the science of navigation, scientifically and practically, 
 and had been seized with a desire to take part in 
 one of those voyages of exploration for which Eliza- 
 beth's reign is famous. With worthy Master Purchas 
 he was moved to think there was " one thing yet left 
 undone whereby a great mind might become notable;" 
 and that was, the discovery of the North-west Pas- 
 sage to Cathay. His design, however, went beyond 
 the mere discovery and nominal possession of a new 
 land. He made the search for Meta Incognita 
 secondary to the planting of a colony on the northern 
 shores of America. Raleigh eagerly supported the 
 scheme. 
 
 There was no difficulty in getting the sanction of 
 the Crown to the enterprise. Sir Humphrey Gilbert 
 was a favourite with the Queen, who had watched 
 his career with interest from boyhood, and had given 
 him to wife, as a special token of regard, one of her 
 own maids of honour. Raleigh had not yet had the 
 opportunity of flinging his cloak upon the muddy 
 
 (84) 2
 
 18 THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY. 
 
 footway, but his name was known with credit out of 
 court. 
 
 It was in 1578 that Sir Humphrey obtained from 
 the Queen a grant of any " remote heathen or bar- 
 barous lands, not being actually possessed by any 
 Christian prince or people," which he might discover. 
 There had already been some talk of making a set- 
 tlement in Newfoundland. When Frobisher made his 
 second voyage to the fabled gold-mines of Hudson's 
 Strait, he carried with him a number of men, who 
 undertook to form a colony in that frozen and for- 
 bidding region ; but when they reached the spot, the 
 hardships they endured, and the immense quantity 
 of black ore, supposed to contain the precious metal, 
 enough " to suffice all the gold gluttons of the world," 
 which they collected, rendered them anxious to re- 
 turn to England. The plan of a settlement was 
 therefore abandoned, and the adventurers brought 
 home their cargoes of worthless stones, concerning 
 the destination of which no record survives. Sir 
 Humphrey Gilbert, warned probably by the results 
 of this expedition, gave little heed to the dazzling 
 prospect of gold-fields in the ice-bound north. He saw 
 a surer and richer mine of wealth in the shoals of 
 cod-fish with which the waters of Newfoundland 
 swarmed. Already four hundred vessels came an- 
 nually from Spain, Portugal, France, and England 
 to those teeming banks. The English were repre- 
 sented only by some thirty or forty sail ; but they
 
 A FLEET COLLECTED. 19 
 
 were " commonly lords of the harbours wherein they 
 fished," receiving a tribute of fish and salt from the 
 other vessels, as a return for their protection against 
 the pirates who infested the coast. The title to the 
 land was claimed by England, on the ground that it 
 was discovered by the Cabots in 1497. Thither Sir 
 Humphrey Gilbert resolved to transport his colony. 
 
 Many persons of good estate joined the expedition, 
 and great preparations were made to insure its suc- 
 cess. A strong fleet was got ready, " able to encoun- 
 ter a king's power by sea." But the enterprise did 
 not thrive. Discord arose among the adventurers 
 before they set sail, and a number deserted. Sir 
 Humphrey had to put to sea with a few assured 
 friends. The fleet fell into confusion, and separated ; 
 some ships at once went home, the rest were 
 assailed by the Spaniards, and returned discomfited, 
 with the loss of one tall bark. 
 
 II. THE VOYAGE OF THE GOLDEN HIND. 
 
 Impoverished by these disasters, it was not till 
 the patent had nearly expired that Sir Humphrey 
 procured the means to equip another expedition. 
 With the assistance of Raleigh, now in high favour 
 with the Queen, he collected a fleet of five ships. 
 " We were in all," says the chronicler of the voyage, 
 " two hundred and sixty men ; among whom we had 
 of every faculty good choice, as ship-wrights, masons,
 
 20 THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY. 
 
 carpenters, sn fchs, and such like, requisite to such an 
 action ; also mineral-men and refiners. Besides, for 
 solace of our own people, and allurement of the 
 savages, we were provided with music in good variety; 
 not omitting the best toys for morris-dancers, hobby- 
 horses, and many like conceits." Before Gilbert sailed, 
 on the llth June 1583, the Queen sent him a jewel, 
 representing an " anchor guided by a lady," as a token 
 of regard. In spite of the desertion of the bark 
 which Raleigh had equipped, the fleet reached New- 
 foundland in safety by the end of July. The first 
 glimpse of the coast a bleak stretch of rocks loom- 
 ing through a dense fog was disheartening ; but 
 a more favoured spot was soon after reached, where 
 the weary mariners were charmed with the sight of 
 fresh green foliage, bright flowers, and berry-bearing 
 plants. It was just at the close of the fishing season, 
 of which they observed a significant sign in " the 
 incredible multitude of sea-fowl hovering over the 
 bank, to prey upon the offal of fish thrown away by 
 the fishermen." They were well received by the ships 
 of various nations at St. John's. Sir Humphrey at 
 once landed, took formal possession of the country 
 in the name of the Queen, amid a salvo of ordnance 
 from the vessels in the anchorage, and gave grants of 
 land to various persons. Disaffection, unfortunately, 
 broke out among his crew, one half of whom returned 
 to England. With the rest he set out to explore the 
 coast towards the south. He sailed in his little ten-
 
 A STORM AND A WRECK. 21 
 
 ton cutter, the Squirrel ; the larger ships, the Delight 
 and the Golden Hind, following as near the shore as 
 they dared. The summer was spent in examining 
 all the creeks and bays, noting the soundings, taking 
 the bearings of every possible harbour, and carefully 
 surveying the rugged coast, at great risk of destruction. 
 The admiral was satisfied with the appearance of the 
 land. A lump of ore which was picked up was pro- 
 nounced by the mineral-men to be silver, to the de- 
 light of the crew. One night towards the end of 
 August there were signs of a gathering storm, though 
 the weather was fair and pleasant. It was after- 
 wards remembered that, " like to the swan, that 
 singeth before her death, they in the Delight con- 
 tinued in the sounding of drums and trumpets and 
 fifes, also the winding of cornets and haughtboys, 
 and in the end of their jollity left with the battell 
 and ringing of doleful bells." Two days after, the 
 tempest broke upon them. The Delight, the largest 
 vessel in the fleet, struck upon a rock and went 
 down in sight of the other vessels, which were 
 unable to render any help. A large store of pro- 
 visions and Sir Humphrey's papers were lost. The 
 Hind and the Squirrel, which had made a narrow 
 escape, were now alone. The weather continued 
 boisterous, winter had fairly set in, and the cold 
 became more cruel. Provisions running short, both 
 crews were put on short allowance, and used to 
 condole with each other by signs, pointing to their
 
 22 THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY. 
 
 mouths and exhibiting their thin and tattered clothes. 
 Not without much pressure from his men Sir 
 Humphrey was persuaded to abandon his explora- 
 tions for the present, and to return to England. He 
 did his best to cheer the drooping spirits of his 
 companions, going from one vessel to the other 
 " making merry ; " speaking hopefully of future ex- 
 peditions to Newfoundland, and declaring that, on 
 hearing what had been done, the Queen would provide 
 the money for another voyage. Those in the Golden 
 Hind besought him not to expose himself to ship- 
 wreck in a vessel so slight, frail, and overloaded as 
 the Squirrel ; but he refused to quit the men with 
 whom he had already passed through so many storms 
 and perils. Soon afterwards the weather became 
 dark and lowering. The sailors, oppressed with a 
 vague sense of coming ill, declared that they heard 
 strange voices in the air, and beheld fearful shapes 
 flitting around the ship. The seas were more "out- 
 rageous " than the oldest mariner had ever known 
 before. " On Monday the 9th September," says 
 Hayes, " in the afternoon, the frigate was near cast 
 away, oppressed by the waves, but at that time 
 recovered. Giving forth signs of joy, the general, 
 sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out unto 
 us in the Hinde, so often as we did approach within 
 hearing, ' We are as near to heaven by sea as by 
 land,' reiterating the same speech, well becoming a 
 soldier resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testify he
 
 DEATH OF A HERO. 23 
 
 was. The same Monday night, about twelve of the 
 clock, or not long after, the frigate being ahead of 
 us in the Golden Hinde, suddenly her lights were 
 out, whereof as it were in a moment we lost the 
 sight ; and withal our watch cried, ' The general is 
 cast away i ' which was too true." 
 
 Thus perished Sir Humphrey Gilbert, to the end 
 resolute in a " purpose honest and godly as was this, 
 to discover, possess, and reduce into the service of 
 God and Christian piety, those remote and heathen 
 countries of America." 
 
 The Golden Hind survived the storm, and bore 
 the tidings of the disastrous fate of the expedition to 
 England. For a time all projects of colonization in 
 that rugged and inhospitable island were abandoned. 
 A number of vessels, however, still resorted to the 
 fishings during the summer season ; and, occasionally, 
 one or two crews wintered on the island. In 1612, 
 Alderman Guy, a rich merchant of Bristol, projected 
 a settlement in Newfoundland. A company was 
 formed, under a royal patent, and three vessels con- 
 veyed Guy and a small body of colonists to their 
 new home. In spite of the exertions of the governor, 
 and the supplies from the company in England, the 
 colony languished. The settlers endeavoured to 
 trade with the natives ; but they were timid and 
 suspicious, and " shrank from the white men." There 
 were constant disputes between the planters and the 
 fishermen. The residents charged the visitors with
 
 24 THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY. 
 
 wasting the trees for fuel and fishing stages, and 
 silting up the harbours with ballast. The fishermen 
 retorted that the planters sought to monopolize the 
 fisheries, which had been free from time immemorial. 
 Pirates took advantage of these quarrels to despoil 
 both parties, and to levy black-mail on all vessels 
 approaching the coast. In ten years, the colony had 
 lost at the hands of these marauders 40,800 in 
 money, and more than a thousand men slain or 
 enslaved. 
 
 In 1621 the colon}' received a fresh impulse from 
 the patronage of Sir George Calvert, afterwards Lord 
 Baltimore, a man holding high office in England, and 
 enjoying the confidence of King James. A sincere 
 Roman Catholic, he was anxious to provide a peaceful 
 retreat from persecution for the adherents of that 
 religion, and selected the' southern promontory of 
 Newfoundland as a suitable spot. He despatched 
 Captain Edward Wynne with a well selected band, 
 to lay the foundation of the new settlement. So 
 sanguine were the colonists, that on the bleak rocky 
 shores, wrapped in saline vapours and swept by 
 withering blasts from the ice-fields, they already saw 
 in fancy, not only fields of waving corn, but vine- 
 yards bursting with rich clusters of the grape. Nor 
 had the old hallucination died out. The " prospect 
 of mines" was excellent ; and there was " a certain 
 report of a Portugal that had found one pearl worth 
 300 ducats."
 
 IT IS TEMPORARILY ABANDONED. 25 
 
 Lord Avalon, son of Lord Baltimore, arrived to 
 rule the colony ; and soon after the generous patron 
 himself appeared upon the scene. He came just in 
 time to chastise some French ships which had been 
 annoying the settlers. Victory proved nearly as 
 costly as defeat ; for so many Frenchmen were made 
 captive, that, provisions being somewhat scarce, Lord 
 Baltimore was at a loss how to maintain them with- 
 out stinting his own people. The presence of this 
 nobleman exercised a happy influence. He was 
 earnest in promoting habits of domestic order and 
 economical industry, discountenanced the idle visions 
 of El Dorado, and gave the planters every encourage- 
 ment to apply themselves to the tillage of the soil 
 and the creation of a steady commerce. Nor were 
 his benefits limited to advice. He impaired his 
 estate to the extent of 25,000, in advancing the 
 interests of the colony. In spite of these advantages, 
 it proved a failure. In 1629 Lord Baltimore wrote 
 to the King that he had met with difficulties which 
 he could no loDger resist, and had resolved to seek 
 some warmer and more promising spot on the shores 
 of America. He described the winter in Newfound- 
 land as intolerably severe, both land and sea being 
 frozen for nearly eight months. His house had beei 
 an hospital nearly all the winter. Out of the hun- 
 dred settlers, fifty were sick in bed, he himself 
 amongst the number. Nine or ten had died. 
 Broken in health, disappointed in his hopes, im-
 
 26 THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY 
 
 poverished in fortune, he was still bent on founding 
 a settlement. " My inclination," he wrote, "entirely 
 carries me to proceedings in plantations ;" and he- 
 besought the King to give him a grant of land in 
 Virginia, whither he desired to remove with forty 
 persons. King James urged him to return to Eng- 
 land, " seeing that men of his condition and breeding 
 are fitter for other employments than the forming of 
 new plantations, which commonly have rugged and 
 laborious beginnings." The brave old nobleman was 
 of another mind. He looked for no personal profit 
 from the project ; but he had set his hand to the 
 work for the good of others, and he would not with- 
 draw from it. So he departed, with his little com- 
 pany, from the windy shore of rocky Avalon, to 
 found a happier and more enduring colony in Mary- 
 land. 
 
 Notwithstanding the failure of these systematic 
 attempts at settlement, the number of colonists on 
 the island gradually increased, so that in 1653 it 
 was estimated that there were fifteen stations, in- 
 cluding three hundred and fifty families. The cod- 
 fisheries also throve, and have always formed the chief 
 resource and main-stay of the colon}'-. From the middle 
 of February to June, the hardy and intrepid fishermen, 
 in small barks of from fifty to a hundred tons, pursue 
 the seal among the seas of Newfoundland and Labra- 
 dor, braving the fierce winds, the arrowy sleet and 
 blinding snow, the over-mastering currents,, and dread-
 
 IS FORTUNATELY RE-FOUNDED. 27 
 
 ful onset of crashing icebergs. From June to Novem- 
 ber the cod-fishery occupies their energies. In the 
 depth of winter the fishermen and their families de- 
 sert their rude hovels of bark or turf upon the beach, 
 and retire into the recesses of the forest, where they 
 find shelter from the blasts, and fuel for their fires. 
 Several well-to-do towns form the chief stations of 
 the trade in fish and oiL
 
 Jplhc ^Mmntbation of 
 
 I. ROANOKE. 
 
 II. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 IIL SUNSHINE AND SHADE.
 
 jfownbaiioit of $irijtnia. 
 
 I. BOANOKE. 
 
 |NDISMAYED by the calamities which befell 
 the expedition of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 
 and full of generous faith in his projects of 
 colonization, Sir Walter Raleigh resolved upon another 
 attempt to found an English settlement in America, 
 not on the gloomy shores of the icy gulf, but in 
 some kindly region of the warm and balmy south. 
 Receiving a liberal patent for a colony from the 
 Queen, he intrusted its execution to two tried and 
 worthy captains, Philip Amadis and Arthur Barlow, 
 who, in 1 584, led two vessels well laden with men and 
 provisions to the New World. After two months' sail 
 (for they steered their course by the Canaries and 
 West India Islands), a fragrant odour, " as of a rich 
 and delicate garden," warned them that, although 
 still unseen, land was not far distant, and wooed 
 them to approach. They were then off the coast of 
 Florida, but had to sail northwards one hundred and 
 twenty miles before they found a suitable harbour. 
 The first aspect of the country was like a glimpse of
 
 32 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 Paradise to the storm-tossed voyagers. It was the 
 season in which the land put forth its most lavish 
 charms. The shores were covered with noble groves 
 of cedar, pine, and cypress, richly festooned with clam- 
 bering vines, which, in their wanton luxuriance, sent 
 forth a thousand tendrils across the golden sands. 
 The beach was strewn with clusters of purple grapes, 
 which the waves plucked and carried to the ships, as 
 though it were an offering of welcome to the strangers. 
 The report of a gun startled a legion of snow-white 
 cranes into the air ; and when the English landed they 
 found the woods swarming with game of every species. 
 But no creature of their own kind was visible till 
 the third day, when a canoe filled with natives 
 suddenly approached. Some trifling presents gained 
 the confidence of this simple people, who are described 
 as " most gentle, loving, and faithful ; void of all 
 guile and treason, and such as lived after the manner 
 of the golden age." Further acquaintance proved 
 that simplicity might be combined with cruelty and 
 deceit ; that whole tribes had perished in domestic 
 feuds ; and that their art of war was, to invite their 
 enemies to a feast of peace and murder them in the 
 hour of confidence. The natives, however, gave good 
 entertainment to the English, who were much inter- 
 ested by the sight of the rare jewels and plates of 
 yellow metal which they wore. After a summer spent 
 in pleasant wanderings among the "hundred islands" 
 of North Carolina, the fleet returned to England, to
 
 LANDING OF TUB FIRST EMIGRANTS. 33 
 
 sing the praises of the promised land which fortune 
 had bestowed on them, and which, in honour of 
 the Queen, was called Virginia. The island of Roanoke 
 was chosen as the head-quarters of the settlement. 
 
 In the following year a fleet of seven vessels, 
 under the command of Sir Richard Grenville, con- 
 veyed a body of one hundred and eight emigrants to 
 Virginia. The admiral spent but a short time abroad, 
 returning to England with a rich cargo of furs and 
 pearls, and a Spanish prize, which he captured on 
 the way. Short as was his stay, his rashness led 
 him to commit an act which, in the end, proved very 
 fatal to his countrymen. A silver cup was stolen 
 in one of the Indian villages, and because it was 
 not quickly restored, Grenville burned the wigwams 
 of the natives, and laid waste their crops. The 
 injury was never forgiven. 
 
 Mr. Ralph Lane, who was left in command of the 
 colony, confirmed the former glowing accounts of the 
 country. " It is the goodliest soil," he wrote, " under 
 the cope of heaven. If Virginia had but horses and 
 kine, and were inhabited with English, no realm in 
 Christendom were comparable to it." Hariot, an 
 eminent mathematician, who accompanied the expe- 
 dition, supplied more specific information as to the 
 land, its people, and its resources. He noted the 
 value of three new plants, tobacco, maize, and the 
 potato ; and also the want of combination among 
 the natives. The wonder and awe with which the 
 
 (84) 3
 
 34 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 English were regarded on account of their fire-arms, 
 and other strange instruments, Hariot sought to turn 
 to account, by impressing on the natives the truths of 
 his religion. Wherever he went he displayed the 
 Bible and explained its meaning. The Indians, 
 ever ready to hail a new divinity, accepted the 
 sacred volume as the idol of the white man, and 
 kissed and hugged it as a charm against evil. As 
 the English were all men, and as during their stay 
 none of them succumbed to disease or wounds, it was 
 supposed that they were not born of woman, and 
 that they were some ancient race risen from the 
 slumber of ages. This surmise was quickly followed 
 by the dark suspicion which always disturbs the mind 
 of the savage when he first learns his helplessness 
 before the civilized man : " Lo, these are come to 
 kill our people and possess the land ! " The Indians 
 resolved not to yield without a struggle. To deceit, 
 the arm of weakness, they resorted for protection. 
 Menatonon, a crafty chief, saw that the new comers 
 were mad about gold, and told them of a region 
 beyond the setting sun where there were such inex- 
 haustible mines of the precious metal that the natives 
 adorned their houses with it. Lane was impatient 
 to ascend the rapid current of the Koanoke and 
 penetrate to this source of boundless wealth. Mena- 
 tonon undertook to provide supplies of provisions 
 along the route. But as the English advanced they 
 found only empty wigwams and wasted fields. In
 
 TIIE COLONISTS RESCUED BY DRAKE. 35 
 
 three days their slender store of food was consumed. 
 Blinded with the lust of gold, they could not see that 
 the Indians were luring them to destruction. Lane 
 had some glimmering of the truth, and urged them to 
 return. " No/' was their answer ; " while we have 
 yet two dogs to eat we will go on." A sudden shower 
 of arrows from an ambuscade, however, drove them 
 into retreat. On their way back to Roanoke they 
 were glad to eat their dogs. 
 
 Deterred by Lane's reappearance from attacking the 
 settlement, the Indians would have left their lands 
 implanted, in order to starve the English, had not 
 one of their chiefs dissuaded them. The suspicions 
 of the settlers were by this time alive. Lane, a 
 headstrong and unscrupulous man, obtained an audi- 
 ence of Wingina, the supreme prince, and his chiefs, 
 and slew them during the conference. Open war 
 followed. The English, afraid to venture beyond 
 their station, fell into despondency. They gave 
 themselves up for lost, when they saw the bay 
 whitened with the sails of a large fleet, which they 
 imagined to be Spaniards. It proved to be Sir 
 Francis Drake on his way home from a successful 
 raid upon the Spanish settlements. He supplied his 
 unhappy countrymen with a bark and several pin- 
 naces, in order that they might have the means of 
 quitting Roanoke when they chose ; but a dreadful 
 storm arose, and the vessels were all lost in " the 
 wild road of their bad harbour." Supplies from
 
 36 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 England were now long over-due, and in despair Lane 
 and his companions eagerly accepted Drake's offer of 
 a homeward passage in his fleet. 
 
 Within a few days a ship arrived laden with abun- 
 dant provisions. Finding the little fort a desolate 
 ruin, it at once departed, fearful that the destroyer 
 might be still lurking on the shore. A fortnight 
 afterwards came Sir Kichard Grenville with three 
 well-furnished ships. Unwilling that England should 
 forfeit her right to the country, he landed a body of 
 fifteen men on the island of Roanoke, and returned 
 to England to report the mysterious disappearance of 
 the colony. 
 
 It shows the brave, steadfast heart of the man, that 
 even now Raleigh did not despair. A series of dis- 
 asters had overthrown his schemes, but they were due 
 to accident. It had been proved beyond question that 
 the soil was of exuberant fertility, and that the 
 climate was not unhealthy. It was just the spot, 
 Raleigh argued, for an agricultural settlement. So 
 he got together a company of emigrants, and de- 
 spatched them with their wives and families, under 
 Captain John White, to found the " city of Raleigh," 
 on the rich shores of the Bay of Chesapeake. Unable, 
 however, to fulfil that design, they resumed the 
 plantation of Roanoke. The spectacle upon which 
 their eyes fell when they landed on. the island was 
 ominous of evil. They beheld a group of ruined 
 huts half buried in a rank growth of weeds, and
 
 FEUDS WITH THE NATIVES. 37 
 
 tenanted by the wild deer and the cony. Here 
 and there a ghastly human skull grinned on a crum- 
 bling threshold; or a human bone, bleached by 
 exposure, gleamed through the lush-green herbage. 
 A sense of vague, undefined danger, fell upon them, 
 which even the stoutest heart could not shake off. 
 They would fain have been at peace with the Indians ; 
 and, by direction of Sir Walter Kaleigh, Manteo, a 
 well-disposed chief, was baptized, and invested with 
 the rank of a feudal baron, under the title of Lord 
 of Eoanoke. But an inexorable destiny seemed to 
 precipitate them into feuds with the natives. In 
 revenging the murder of one of their chief men, the 
 settlers, in the darkness of night, put to the sword 
 several members of a friendly tribe, whom they mis- 
 took for enemies. At the urgent desire of his 
 companions, White consented to go to England for 
 fresh reinforcements and supplies. He left on the 
 island eighty- nine men, seventeen women, and several 
 children, including his own grand-daughter, Virginia 
 Dare, the first offspring of English parents born in 
 America. 
 
 When White reached England, he found the nation 
 engrossed with one subject. The existence of Pro- 
 testantism, the independence of England was at stake, 
 and no one could spare a thought to anything save 
 the defence of the kingdom and the defiance of Pope 
 and Spaniard. The Armada had to be destroyed ; 
 and even when that feat was accomplished, some time
 
 38 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 passed before funds could be procured for the little 
 colony. Raleigh, unable to meet the repeated de- 
 mands on him, formed a Company to carry out the 
 project. 
 
 Nearly three years after his departure from Roan- 
 oke, White returned, to find the settlement was 
 again a desert. He and his men made the woods ring 
 with bugle calls, familiar English songs, and friendly 
 watch- words; but drew forth no response save the 
 cry of the startled birds and the sighing whisper of 
 the leavea A gathering storm drove the explorers 
 to their ships. Five successive expeditions were 
 fitted out by Raleigh, at his own cost, to search for 
 the lost settlers. To this hour their fate is unknown. 
 Doubtless they were murdered by the natives ; but 
 one would fain believe the tradition, that a party of 
 them, wandering from the fort in search of food, fell 
 in with a tribe of kindly natives, who adopted the 
 worn wayfarers as brethren. It is said that, several 
 generations afterwards, evidence of this amalgamation 
 was to be found in the mien and lineaments of the 
 natives of one corner of the island. Roanoke, says 
 Bancroft, is now almost uninhabited, commerce has 
 selected more secure harbours for its pursuits ; the 
 intrepid pilot and the hardy "wrecker" are the only 
 tenants of the spot, where the inquisitive stranger 
 ma y yet discern the ruins of the fort erected by 
 the old colonists.
 
 A NEW COLONY. 39 
 
 II. CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 
 
 For sixteen years the Indians remained in undis- 
 turbed possession of Virginia. But it was too lovely 
 and bountiful a land to be abandoned by the English. 
 The sense of danger excited by the disasters which 
 befell former colonists faded in the lapse of years ; 
 the richness and beauty of the country were always 
 fresh in the minds of men. In 1605 a new colony 
 was projected by an influential Company, and in the 
 following year a band of one hundred and five emi- 
 grants entered the waters of the broad, majestic 
 Chesapeake ; and, sailing up a noble river for about 
 fifty miles, planted their camp on a peninsula, to 
 which, in honour of their king, they gave the name 
 of Jamestown. 
 
 At first all went well. The settlers were delighted 
 with the aspect of the country. Labour was an 
 agreeable novelty, after the irksome idleness of a long 
 sea- voyage. All set heartily to work, some to 
 build a fort, some to clear the soil, and others to 
 prepare freight for the returning ships. The Indians, 
 at first restrained from molesting them by the peace- 
 ful counsels of their king, who said, " They hurt 
 you not, they take but a little waste land," after 
 a time became impatient. When the colony was 
 weakened by the absence of an exploring party, they 
 fell upon it, and slew seventeen men. From the
 
 40 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 first there had been jealousy among the settlers, and 
 open dissensions now broke out. Edward Wing- 
 field, a weak, bad-hearted man, who had been chosen 
 governor, sought to get rid of Captain John Smith, 
 whose watchfulness and resolution hindered his own 
 selfish and dishonest schemes. He trumped up a 
 charge of disloyalty against Smith ; but the stratagem 
 recoiled upon his own head. After an impartial 
 trial, Smith was acquitted, and the governor con- 
 demned to pay a heavy fine. When the squadron 
 which had conveyed the colony to Virginia returned 
 to England, a season of misery and privation ensued. 
 The settlers, retying on the stores of the ships, had 
 lived extravagantly, without heed for the morrow. 
 To their dismay, they now found that their provi- 
 sions were nearly exhausted. The undisciplined 
 fertility of the land, although fair to the eye, supplied 
 but slender food. The dread of Indian ambuscades 
 deterred them from hunting in the woods. The 
 rank and rotten vegetation bred disease, which was 
 fostered by scanty and unwholesome fare. Half 
 a pint of barley and half a pint of wheat boiled 
 with water formed a day's allowance for each man. 
 " Our drink," said one of them, " was unwholesome 
 water, our lodgings castles in the air ; had we been 
 as free from all sins as from gluttony and drunken- 
 ness, we might have been canonized as saints." So 
 rapidly did health and strength fail them, that within 
 ten days after the fleet sailed, there were hardly ten
 
 A ROMANTIC EPISODE. 41 
 
 men able to stand on their legs. Before three months 
 were over, fifty had perished. In the height of their 
 distress, the Indians used them, kindly, and gave 
 them food. But they soon learned to despise men 
 who did nothing but bewail their lot, and tired of 
 helping those who seemed unable to do anything for 
 themselves. An incident, which at first appeared a 
 calamity, served to restore the character of the white 
 men in the eyes of the natives, and to form a bond 
 of friendship between the two races. 
 
 The hero of this episode was Captain John Smith, 
 the story of whose romantic and adventurous career 
 is stranger than any fiction. When at school, he 
 sold his satchel and books in order to run away to 
 sea, but was detained by his father's death. The 
 opportunity of " setting out on brave adventures," 
 for which he had longed in boyhood, arrived while 
 he was still a youth. He served with distinction in 
 several foreign wars, always fighting, like a true 
 knight-errant, to redress tyranny and succour the 
 oppressed. Among other brilliant exploits, he once 
 threw the Turks into a panic by fastening several 
 thousand cartridges to a long rope extended in a line, 
 and firing them all at once, so as to imitate a dis- 
 charge of musketry, and lead the enemy to believe 
 that their flank was turned. Taken captive by the 
 Turks, he was sold "like a beast in the market- 
 place," and transferred to the service of a lady of 
 rank. His mistress, moved to pit} 7 by his youth and
 
 42 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 gallant bearing, sought to mitigate his servitude by 
 various indulgences. This reached her brother's ears, 
 who, enraged at such sympathy for an enemy of his 
 country, despatched Smith to a fortress in the Cri- 
 mea, where he shared the tasks and kennels of a 
 band of half-savage serfs. Goaded almost to mad- 
 ness by brutal usage, he one day flung himself upon his 
 master, stabbed him, and mounting a horse that was 
 at hand, dashed off into the woods, " God directing 
 him in the great way of Castroyan." He escaped 
 into Russia, and was on his way home to his " own 
 sweet country/' when he was drawn to North Africa 
 by the prospect of joining in a war against the Moors. 
 He engaged with much ardour in a plan for coloniza- 
 tion in that part of the world ; and when it broke 
 down through the dishonesty of some of the agents, 
 he transferred his services and his enthusiasm to the 
 planting of Virginia. A valiant and skilful soldier ; 
 a hardy navigator ; a firm, upright, and sagacious 
 leader, he proved the saviour of the English settlers, 
 and must be regarded as the real founder of the 
 colony. 
 
 On his first arrival, Smith undertook the explo- 
 ration of the country with a few companions. In 
 the winter of 1606 he made an expedition up the 
 Chickahomiiiy River. A dense tangled brake span- 
 ning the stream compelled him to quit his canoe, 
 and he pushed forward on foot with two Englishmen 
 and two natives. A body of hostile Indians slew
 
 SMITH AND THE INDIANS. 43 
 
 the two Englishmen as they lay asleep. Undaunted 
 in the presence of two hundred savages, Smith turned 
 to bay. Binding one of the Indian guides firmly 
 to his arm, he used him as a shield against the 
 arrows of the foe, twenty of whom he brought to the 
 ground with his musket. He would have escaped, 
 had he not sunk into a treacherous swamp. Even 
 then the Indians, awed by his courage, and frightened 
 by the thunder and lightning which he called forth 
 at will, stood aloof. It was only when Smith, find- 
 ing himself gradually descending into the slough, and 
 preferring capture by the Indians to immediate suffo- 
 cation, called to them for help, and flung away his 
 gun, that they ventured to approach. They released 
 him from his dangerous position; and, in return, he 
 amused them by exhibiting his pocket-compass, and 
 explaining how the quivering needle was his guide 
 through the pathless forest. He also tried to make 
 them comprehend the roundness of the earth, the 
 cause of day and night, and the process of the spheres. 
 The Indians began to think that their prisoner was 
 no man, but a deity from the clouds. They led him 
 in triumph to the seat of then: monarch, the great 
 Powhatton. The squaws and children poured forth 
 to see the pale-faced warrior. The men greeted him 
 with chants of victory, and rejoiced in the wild 
 measures of their war-dance. Smith was lodged in 
 a large wigwam, and a strong band of " braves " 
 mounted guard over him. He was so well fed that
 
 44 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 he began to suspect they were fattening him for the 
 table. In conversing with him, the Indians made no 
 secret of their intention to destroy the colony. To 
 deter them, he described the formidable weapons 
 with which his friends were armed. As the Indians 
 were somewhat incredulous, it was agreed that 
 messengers should be sent to test the truth of his 
 reports. He gave them one of his tablets, on which 
 he had written a few words, desiring the settlers to 
 frighten the savages with guns and fire- works, but 
 not to hurt them. A day or two afterwards the 
 messengers came back with most appalling accounts 
 of the power of the people, who could make a bit of 
 paper speak, who could blow a great tree into splinters 
 half a mile off, and who wielded the thunder and the 
 lightning as familiarly as the Indians their toma- 
 hawks and blow-pipes. The heads of the priesthood 
 were called together, to declare the nature of this 
 strange race; and for three days they wrought their 
 magic spells. 
 
 At last Smith was carried before the Indian 
 monarch, who received him amid all the pomp and 
 splendour of his savage court. The Englishman saw 
 before him a tall, majestic figure, of a sad aspect, 
 clothed in robes of rich fur, and seated on a throne. 
 Two daughters, gaily dressed, and adorned with 
 heavy necklaces of beads, which hung down to their 
 middle, and in which, they rested an arm as in a 
 sling, sat one on each side of the king. The grim
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH A PRISONER. 
 
 Page
 
 SMIT1I SAVED BY POCIfAUONTAS. 45 
 
 courtiers, with their wives, were ranged around. A 
 loud shout greeted the entrance of the captive. One 
 of the ladies of the court respectfully handed him a 
 basin of water for his hands; another tendered a 
 bunch of feathers as a substitute for a towel After 
 a grand feast the council passed judgment on the 
 white man, whom they regarded with mingled 
 fear and admiration. They reverenced his power, 
 but they doubted whether it was for good or evil. 
 Their fears prevailed, and he was doomed to die. 
 Two large stones were placed upon the ground. 
 Several Indians seized their victim and placed his 
 head upon the block. A dozen stalwart arms brand- 
 ished as many clubs, waiting the signal to strike. 
 Suddenly a piercing shriek rang through the hall. 
 Pochahontas, the favourite daughter of the king, 
 then budding into the early maturity of Indian 
 womanhood, rushed forward, stooped over the Eng- 
 lishman, and clasped her arms round his neck, vowing 
 that if they would not spare him she would share his 
 fate ! The noble bearing of the unhappy stranger, 
 so calm in the face of death, so strong in his isolation, 
 had quickened her compassion. Perhaps, too, with 
 the confiding piety of woman, she discerned in him a 
 being of a beneficent and superior order, by slaying 
 whom her countrymen might bring a curse upon 
 themselves. Powhatton and his councillors could 
 not resist the appeal of Pochahontas ; and in giving 
 the stranger his life they sought to propitiate his
 
 46 TIIE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 good-will. Two days afterwards he was despatched, 
 under a trusty escort, to Jamestown. He entertained 
 his attendants with great kindness, and sent them 
 back laden with gifts for his preserver and her royal 
 father. 
 
 The Englishmen and the Indians were now brought 
 into close and friendly relations. Every few days 
 Pochahontas, with a number of companions, visited 
 the fort, and brought baskets of corn for the garrison. 
 The settlers were enabled to study the manners and 
 feelings of the natives. At that time three chief 
 tribes dwelt in the land, the Powhattons, the 
 Manuahoacs, and the Monacares. The empire of 
 Powhatton had the widest borders. Daring, subtle, 
 and ambitious, this prince had raised himself from a 
 petty chief to be a great monarch. Many tribes had 
 yielded to the force of his arms, and had been 
 amalgamated with his people. The Manuahoacs and 
 Monacares, afraid of a similar fate, had formed a 
 close alliance, and waged incessant war against the 
 aggressor. The various tribes were much the same 
 in appearance. In figure, they were tall and shapely, 
 at once strong and supple. Their hair was jet black ; 
 and their complexion, originally of a bright copper 
 colour, was deepened to a more dusky hue by the 
 application of grease and the juice of certain plants. 
 They went clothed in mantles and aprons of deer- 
 skins, and dyed their breasts and faces with fantastic 
 streaks of red and blue. Wooden clubs and swords,
 
 THE INDIAN TRIBES. 47 
 
 bows of hazel with arrows of reed, blow-pipes, and 
 frail shields of bark and sticks woven together with 
 grass, were their only weapons. A few wigwams 
 in a circle of stakes represented a town, the largest 
 containing only thirty dwellings. To build a house, 
 they planted a circle of flexible saplings, drew the 
 tops together, and bound them with cord. A thatch 
 of bark completed the edifice. Destitute of the 
 arts, they were full of native wit and cunning. 
 Endurance was their chief virtue. No torture could 
 extract from them a moan or a tear. Their religion 
 taught them to adore the elements ; but they also 
 acknowledged a Supreme Being, whose huge footprints 
 they viewed with awe on a rock by the side of the 
 River James. They had a dim conception of a 
 future state, in which bad men suffered in everlasting 
 ice, while the good basked in the never-ending sum- 
 mer of the happy hunting-grounds. 
 
 From the first landing of the colonists it had 
 become daily more and more apparent that Smith 
 was the foremost man among them, and the true 
 guide and guardian of the settlement. No sooner was 
 his back turned on the fort than the inmates fell 
 into mischief and disorder. Thrice he had been ab- 
 sent exploring the country, and on each occasion he 
 returned just in time to quell a mutiny that threat- 
 ened to ruin the colony. Now it was President 
 Wingfield, who having, with some confederates, seized 
 the pinnace, and smuggled into it a large share of the
 
 48 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 slender stores of the starving settlers, was on the point 
 of departing for England. The next time it was the 
 new president, Ratcliffe, who had conspired with some 
 others to desert the colony. When Smith returned 
 from his captivity among the Powhattons, he found the 
 settlers reduced by famine and disease to forty men ; 
 and of these the strongest were again preparing to 
 escape with the pinnace. They were already on 
 board, with sails hoisted to the breeze, but put back 
 when Smith turned the guns of the fort upon them. 
 Thus passed the first nine months of colonial ex- 
 istence. The chief cause of the discord and misery 
 which had arisen was the character of the emigrants. 
 Of the original band of one hundred and five, only 
 twelve were labourers and four artisans. The rest 
 were decayed gentlemen, broken-down gallants, bank- 
 rupt tradesmen, serving-men, and loose fellows fresh 
 from the stocks and the jail. They had looked 
 forward to a life of prodigal ease, and had neither 
 strength nor will for the toil and privation which 
 must attend the early stages of colonial life. In 
 nine months nearly a third of them had perished ; 
 and of the handful which remained, not ten were 
 able-bodied men. It was about this time that 
 Captain Newport arrived, with one hundred and 
 twenty recruits, and supplies of provisions. Unfor- 
 tunately, the new comers were of the same worthless 
 kind as those who had preceded them, men " ten 
 times more fit to spoil than to maintain a common-
 
 TI1E MOTIIER OF THE WATERS. 49 
 
 wealth." Among the new arrivals were several 
 gold-refiners, who pronounced the glittering yellow 
 sand in a stream near the settlement to be gold. 
 As yet only a few houses had been built, and barely 
 four acres of land had been cleared ; but instantly 
 every other work, no matter how essential, was 
 abandoned, in order to search for the precious metal. 
 There was now " no talk, no hope, no work, but dig 
 gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold." Smith in 
 vain remonstrated against this folly ; and when 
 Newport sailed for England with a cargo of the 
 deceitful earth, "never did anything more torment 
 him than to see all necessary business neglected, to 
 freight such a drunken ship with so much gilded 
 dust/' 
 
 From the peak of the peninsula the colonists 
 looked out upon the wide expanse of Chesapeake 
 Bay, swollen with the waters of many noble rivers, 
 and a myriad of smaller streams, which might be seen 
 winding, like veins of silver, among the green hills, 
 and gemmed with a thousand 
 
 " Summer isles of Eden, lying in dark purple spheres of sea." 
 
 Availing himself of a brief season of repose which 
 followed the departure of Newport and his golden 
 freight, Smith explored the " Mother of the Waters," 
 as the natives call the Chesapeake. In an open boat 
 of three tons, exposed to wind and weather, with but 
 a handful of companions, whose unruly spirit made 
 
 (84) 4
 
 50 TIIK FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 them rather a hindrance than a help, and liable to the 
 assaults of treacherous enemies, he accomplished a 
 voyage of nearly three thousand miles, traversing 
 the great bay, visiting many of its islands, surveying 
 its chief tributaries and inlets, and penetrating far 
 beyond the shores into the interior of the land. At 
 the head of the bay he found an encampment of the 
 Susquehannas, a tribe of gigantic stature, arrayed in 
 the skins of bears and wolves, with the heads and 
 teeth of the animals attached, in order to add a grim 
 ferocity to their appearance. These simple giants 
 could not be restrained from worshipping the tra- 
 vellers, with their guns and swords, as direct 
 messengers from Heaven. Smith also made the ac- 
 quaintance of the Mohawks, " who dwelt upon a 
 great water, and had many boats and many men, 
 and made war upon all the world," and of whom the 
 feeble Algonquin tribes lived in much dread. 
 
 As usual, during his absence the colony fell into 
 disorder; and on his return he assumed the nominal 
 authority of the President, which he had already 
 virtually exercised. He endeavoured to recall the 
 settlers to a sense of their true mission, and to 
 impress upon them the necessity of temperance and 
 industry. He would tolerate no idleness ; " he who 
 would not work might not eat." Some he employed to 
 make glass, others to prepare tar, pitch, and potash. 
 Leading a number of the " gentlemen" into the woods, 
 he taught them to wield the axe, and himself set an
 
 HOW SMITU GOVERNED HIS PEOPLE. 51 
 
 example in felling trees and fashioning planks for 
 building. At first the novelty and excitement of 
 the exercise reconciled them to the work, and they 
 found amusement in the thundering crash of the 
 great trees as they came to the ground. But the 
 axe soon blistered the delicate hands of the fine gentle- 
 men, and the labour grew irksome and monotonous. 
 " Many times every third blow had a loud oath to 
 drown the echo." Smith cured this habit by count- 
 ing the number of oaths, and for each ordering a 
 can of cold water to be poured down the sleeve of 
 the offender. Six hours in the day were spent in 
 Work, the rest might be given to pastime. Under 
 this wholesome and energetic discipline, order and 
 industry began to prevail in the settlement. 
 
 The arrival of Newport with a second body of 
 recruits, and fresh instructions from the Company in 
 England, somewhat disturbed the course of labour 
 and contentment. The seventy new emigrants were 
 of the same unsuitable class as the others ; and 
 Smith had to write home, entreating the Company, 
 when they despatched another band of recruits. 
 " rather to send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, 
 gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and dig- 
 gers up of trees' roots, well provided, than a thousand 
 of such as we have." The orders which Newport 
 conveyed imperatively required that the country 
 should be explored for gold, and threatened that 
 unless the colonists sent back % freight equal in value
 
 52 TUB FOUNDATION OP VIRGINIA. 
 
 to the cost of the last voyage (2000), "they should 
 be left in Virginia as banished men." Accordingly 
 a gold-hunting expedition was projected, and, in spite 
 of Smith's remonstrances, set out for the interior. 
 The result was as he had predicted. After a fruit- 
 less search, the explorers returned to Jamestown, 
 " deluded and disappointed, half sick, and all com- 
 plaining of being sadly distressed with toil, famine, 
 and discontent." The consequence of this diversion 
 from the regular work of the colony was, that not 
 more than thirty or forty acres were brought under 
 cultivation ; and, to avoid starvation, the English had 
 to solicit food from the natives, upon whose charity 
 some of them were degraded enough to live. 
 
 The friendly relations which Smith had established 
 between the settlers and .the Indians were also en- 
 dangered by the folly and imprudence of Newport 
 and his associates. A vain, boastful person, he 
 sought to obtain favour in the eyes of Powhatton, 
 and to elevate himself above the president, by lavish 
 presents ; which, of course, quite upset the " standard 
 of currency." Amid this profusion of gifts, the 
 natives began to undervalue the commodities of the 
 English; refused to give them sufficient supplies of 
 grain in exchange; and at length grew so petulant, 
 through Newport's indulgence, that they helped them- 
 selves to what they wanted without the trouble of 
 asking. Smith saw clearly what would be the result 
 of this conduct. H^ seized a number of Indians
 
 NEWPORT CROWNS THE INDIAN KING. 
 
 Page 53.
 
 A FARCICAL CORONATION. 53 
 
 who had stolen some of his goods, and by whipping 
 and imprisonment gave them such a wholesome 
 lesson, that the colony was free from such molestation 
 for some time to come. 
 
 "When on a visit to Powhatton, Newport got up 
 the farce of a coronation. The old king was delighted 
 with the scarlet mantle and other regal raiment 
 which the sea-captain produced; but when he was 
 asked to kneel in order to receive the crown, he 
 absolutely refused. He had never bent the knee to 
 any one, and he vowed he never would. Some of 
 the attendants had to lean upon his shoulders, and 
 press his head forward, while the diadem was placed 
 on his brow. When the English fired a volley in 
 his honour, he jumped up in a fright, thinking his 
 town was besieged. When he calmed down, he 
 graciously presented Newport with his old cloak and 
 worn-out shoes. 
 
 Not only had familiarity with the weapons of the , 
 English diminished the dread which the Indians 
 entertained of them, but, through the folly of some 
 of the colonists, they had procured and learned to 
 use a number of guns. The dependence of the white 
 men on the natives for food also excited the con- 
 tempt of the sons of the forest, who now cherished 
 the idea of sweeping them from the country. But 
 for Smith, the colony would doubtless have perished 
 long before under the tomahawks of the aborigines. 
 Upon this resolute and courageous man, whom no
 
 54 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 craft could overreach, no surprise could baffle, no 
 danger could daunt, the Indians looked with awe 
 and veneration as a superior being. He seemed to 
 bear a charmed life. They recollected how despe- 
 rately he had defended himself when taken captive 
 in the swamp, and how they had been moved to 
 spare his life as if by the instigation of the gods. It 
 was told, too, how once, when assaulted by a hostile 
 tribe, he seized the chief by his long lock of hair, 
 and placing a pistol against his breast, led him forth 
 in the sight of all his followers, who were so awed 
 by the daring and suddenness of the act, that they 
 threw down their arms, and propitiated the white 
 brave with gifts. They had tried in vain to poison 
 him. A huge, stalwart Indian, once flung himself 
 suddenly upon Smith, arid both fell into the water; 
 but, after a fierce grapple, Smith rose to the surface, 
 and his antagonist never re-appeared. An accident 
 led them to believe that he was not only himself 
 above the penalties of mortality, but that he had the 
 power of restoring the dead to life. An Indian 
 prisoner having been confined in a small hut where 
 there was a charcoal fire, and no escape for the 
 vapour, was, of course, thrown into a state of stupor ; 
 from which Smith revived him by carrying him into 
 the fresh air, and administering brandy and vinegar. 
 To the simple natives it appeared that the patient 
 had been brought back from the happy hunting- 
 grounds.
 
 A WARNING FROM POCHAHONTAS. OO 
 
 The Indians, therefore, looked upon Captain Smith 
 as the one obstacle to their designs. Having tried 
 in vain to bribe him to desert his countrymen, Pow- 
 hatton resolved to surprise and capture him. The 
 wily prince enticed him to his court by a flattering 
 invitation, and besought him, with many assurances 
 of affection, to put away his guns, for they alarmed 
 his subjects so much, that "if but a twig broke, they 
 cried out, ' Here comes Captain Smith ! ' " Smith 
 suspected the treacherous plan, and determined to be 
 beforehand with the king. He would have seized 
 Powhatton, had the chief not taken the alarm and fled 
 with his family. The English, lulled into false 
 security by the departure of the Indians, began to 
 load their boats with grain, and might have fallen 
 under the clubs of the Powhattons, had not their 
 guardian angel Pochahontas apprised them of their 
 peril. The English thus fore-warned were fore- 
 armed, and the natives, seeing that they were on 
 their guard, did not molest them. 
 
 The danger of assault by the Indians having thus 
 been averted, the colony enjoyed a brief interval of 
 prosperity and repose, which was brought to an end 
 by two deadly foes. The one was a legion of rats, 
 which secretly invaded their store-houses and con- 
 sumed their food. The other was the " insufferable 
 sloth and unreasonable perverseness " of a number of 
 the colonists, who defied authority, and would not 
 bear their share in the toils and burdens of the
 
 56 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 settlement. At this critical period an explosion of 
 gunpowder inflicted a terrible wound on the presi- 
 dent. Unable to procure surgical aid in Jamestown, 
 and in peril of his life by poison or assassination at 
 the hands of his enemies, Smith reluctantly returned 
 to England. He left behind him more than four 
 hundred and ninety persons, of whom at least one 
 hundred were well trained soldiers ; a sufficient store 
 of arms and ammunition; numerous flocks and herds; 
 and a harvest newly gathered. 
 
 Just before Smith's departure seven ships arrived 
 from England, with four hundred emigrants, bring- 
 ing word that the Company had been again re-or- 
 ganized ; that Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George 
 Somers, and Captain Newport, had been appointed 
 to administer the affairs of the colony until Lord 
 Delaware, the new governor, arrived ; but that, as 
 far as was known, the three deputies had perished 
 in a dreadful storm which had separated their vessel 
 from the rest of the fleet. The former president 
 being thus deposed, and the new magistrates to all 
 appearance drowned, anarchy ensued. The dissen- 
 sions of the colonists provoked the hostility of Pow- 
 hatton, who had no longer the fear of Captain Smith 
 before his eyes. There were neither houses nor food 
 for the new settlers. Famine and disease playeJ 
 havoc with the colony, which was now reduced to a 
 band of sixty wretched, haggard creatures, who, hav- 
 ing eaten every living thing upon the settlement ex-
 
 ARRIVAL OF LORD DELAWARE. 57 
 
 cept each other, endeavoured to prolong existence on 
 roots and berries, with now and then a few small fishes. 
 Such was the situation of the English in James- 
 town when Somers, Gates, and Newport arrived. 
 They had been wrecked on the shores of Bermuda, 
 had sojourned in that lovely island for nine months, 
 and had crossed to Virginia in a couple of vessels which 
 they had built of cedar, and in which there was but 
 a single iron bolt! Of the four hundred and ninety 
 persons whom Smith had left on the island, the sixty 
 who remained were little better than living skeletons, 
 in whose breasts all hope had died out. They would 
 listen to no other course than to desert the settle- 
 ment, sail for Newfoundland, and there seek for food 
 and the means of return to England. Four pin- 
 naces received the miserable band, and fell down 
 the stream with the current. The fugitives were 
 waiting for the turn of the tide to continue their 
 voyage, when their eyes were gladdened by the sight 
 of the long-boat of Lord Delaware, who had arrived 
 with three well-stored ships. They at once bore up 
 the helm, and, favoured by the wind, were that night 
 again in the fort, which, but for the interference of 
 Sir Thomas Gates, they would have burned on 
 
 leaving. 
 
 III. SUNSHINE AND SHADE. 
 
 When Lord Delaware arrived, he knelt on the 
 strand in prayer ; and the restoration of the colony
 
 58 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 was inaugurated by a solemn thanksgiving. Then 
 with cheerful alacrity all applied themselves to their 
 respective tasks. Houses were repaired and new 
 ones reared. Fences were made good, and fields 
 reclaimed after long neglect. The hours of labour 
 were from six in the morning to ten, and from two 
 to four in the afternoon. At the beginning and 
 close of every day the bell sounded for prayers, and 
 all flocked to the little church, built on rough pine 
 columns fresh from the forest, and adorned with 
 festoons of wild-flowers. A common stock was 
 established, and a fixed allowance of food was served 
 out to each settler. A code of minute regulations 
 was enforced, which ranged from grave offences 
 against religion and society, to the profane swearing 
 of soldiers and the gossip of scandal-mongers. 
 
 Hopeful, however, as now appeared the prospects 
 of the colonists, it was but a passing gleam of sun- 
 shine which cheered their situation, and vanished in 
 the gloom which quickly fell upon them. Lord 
 Delaware's broken health compelled him to quit the 
 country. The settlers, sobered for a time by the 
 dangers from which they had been so providentially 
 rescued, quickly relapsed into their former idle and 
 wanton habits. Sir Thomas Dale, the new governor, 
 an upright but stern ruler, established martial law. 
 Under Captain Argal, a deputy- governor, who 
 acquired supreme authority on the return of Dale to 
 England in 1616, the condition of the colony became
 
 INTKODOCTION OF TOBACCO. 59 
 
 intolerable. There were no limits to the tyranny 
 and extortions of Argal and his faction. The food 
 distributed to the settlers was " loathsome, and not 
 fit for beasts." They were glad to still the pangs of 
 hunger by eating dogs and vermin. A famishing 
 wretch stole a quantity of meat, and was chained to 
 a tree till he died from want. Slight offences were 
 punished by slavery for a number of years. Many 
 sought relief among the savages from the cruelty and 
 oppression of their own countrymen, while others hid 
 themselves in the woods or in caves of the earth. 
 Lest these things should be revealed in England, 
 letters were suppressed, and men were detained in 
 Jamestown by force. 
 
 Upon the accession of Sir George Yeardley to the 
 office of president, in 1619, commenced a happier 
 era. Under his mild and liberal sway the settlers 
 devoted themselves with energy and success to the 
 development of the resources of Virginia. Hitherto 
 their labour had been misdirected, for it had been 
 given to the production of commodities such as ashes, 
 soap, glass, and tar, with which the European market 
 was already adequately supplied. In tobacco they 
 found a staple which was the peculiar possession of 
 the colony. At first it was cultivated merely as a 
 temporary measure to procure funds for the settle- 
 ment, until the vines and silkworms, of which great 
 hopes were entertained, began to be productive. The 
 Company at home joined with the Council on the
 
 60 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 spot in denouncing that " scurvy and contemptible 
 weed," which was distracting attention from more 
 certain and enduring employments. King James, 
 as might be expected from the author of the " Coun- 
 terblast to Tobacco," was much troubled that the 
 colony should be " wholly built upon smoke," and 
 commanded his subjects in Virginia to give more 
 care and tune to the production of potash, salt, wine, 
 and silk. But planters saw that tobacco was by far 
 the most profitable article they could cultivate ; and 
 tobacco gradually engrossed the industry of the 
 settlers. It not only covered the fields, but invaded 
 the streets and squares of the town. In their haste 
 to be rich, the English neglected to sow a sufficient 
 quantity of grain, and would have been starved had 
 they not obtained supplies from the Indians. Thence- 
 forward tobacco became not only the staple, but the 
 currency of Virginia ; and the aroma of the weed 
 clings to every page of its history. Six or seven 
 years afterwards cotton was introduced, and proved 
 a successful experiment. 
 
 Hitherto Virginia had been the resort of adven- 
 turers, who were willing to sacrifice a few years in a 
 distant land in the hope of gaining the wealth with 
 which they could spend the remainder of their days 
 in ease and luxury in the old country. Few, if any, 
 were more than birds of passage, or were willing to 
 look upon Virginia as their home for life. But now 
 the colony entered on a new stage of existence. It
 
 MARRIAGE OF ROLFE AND POCHAUONTAS. 61 
 
 acquired permanence and stability by the adoption 
 of a valuable staple of commerce, and the admission 
 of the settlers to a voice in the administration of 
 their affairs. Men went out for the purpose of 
 establishing themselves permanently on the soil ; 
 and women followed. The Company induced "ninety 
 agreeable persons, young and incorrupt," to emigrate. 
 They found husbands as soon as they arrived, who 
 were only too glad to repay to the Company the 
 costs of their passage. Next year a second party of 
 young women reached Virginia ; and the Company 
 were able to make a profit out of the transaction. 
 Such was the demand for partners, that the settlers 
 were willing to pay 150 pounds of tobacco as the 
 expense of the voyage, instead of 120 (equal to about 
 150 dollars at the present day), which was the 
 original tariff. " Thus domestic ties were formed : 
 virtuous sentiments and habits of thrift ensued ; the 
 tide of emigration swelled, within three years fifty 
 patents for land were granted, and 3500 persons found 
 their way to Virginia." 
 
 For many years the English lived not only on 
 peaceable, but friendly terms with the Indians. The 
 bond of amity between them, it was believed, had 
 been rivetted securely when the Princess Pochahontas 
 was married to John Rolfe, a young Englishman, 
 who, moved by a voice which sounded daily and 
 hourly in his ears, laboured " for the conversion of 
 the unregenerate maiden;" and finding love a subtle
 
 62 THE FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 agent in the pious work, took her to wife after she 
 had been baptized. The young couple visited Eng- 
 land, where, after exciting the admiration and affec- 
 tion of all who knew her, the young heroine died, on 
 the eve of returning to her native land. Powhatton 
 did not long survive his favourite child. His brother, 
 Opecancanough, who succeeded to the throne, dis- 
 trusted and hated the English, but dissembled his feel- 
 ings. From their first landing, the English did not 
 neglect to preach the gospel to the heathens. Hariot, 
 Hunt, Rolfe, and Whitaker, were distinguished for 
 the zeal and earnestness with which they devoted 
 themselves to the conversion of the Indians ; but 
 their labours yielded little apparent fruit. Among 
 those upon whom some impression seemed to have 
 been made was Opecancanough ; but this was only 
 part of the crafty Indian's scheme of deception. 
 
 Confident in the good- will of the natives, and eager 
 to pursue the cultivation of tobacco, the settlers 
 gradually abandoned the precaution of living together 
 within the walls of the fort, and dispersed over the 
 surrounding country. The Indians, conscious of their 
 weakness in open battle, resolved to take advantage 
 of the scattered situation of the English, and to fall 
 upon them by surprise. The design was planned 
 with the utmost secrecy. The traitors made no 
 change in their intercourse with the settlers. On 
 the forenoon of the day of the massacre they visited 
 the English in their huts, and traded and sat at meat
 
 AN INDIAN INCURSION. 63 
 
 with them. On a sudden the signal was given. In 
 an instant each village was swarming with Indians, 
 who came from every side. The settlers, unarmed 
 and unsuspecting, hemmed in on every side by their 
 treacherous foes, fell an easy prey to the Indian 
 tomahawks. Not content with murder, the butchers 
 mangled the corpses of the victims. Not even a 
 woman or a child was spared. In one hour three 
 hundred and forty-nine persons were cut off. James- 
 town, however, was saved by a happy accident. A 
 converted Indian gave warning to an Englishman, 
 who had been kind to him, the night before the 
 attack ; and the chief station, containing the bulk 
 of the settlers, was thus enabled to offer an armed 
 resistance, which the Indians did not dare to face. 
 
 This was a great blow to the colony. The English 
 deemed it prudent to abandon the cultivation of 
 remote fields, and concentrated themselves once more 
 around Jamestown. Eighty settlements were reduced 
 to six. From the extreme of confidence the English 
 passed to the other extreme of hatred and suspicion. 
 No peace was possible with a people who had so 
 ruthlessly betrayed them. " Without a doubt," 
 wrote the Council in 1623, " either we must drive 
 them, or they us, out of the country/' Successive 
 Acts of Assembly imposed on settlers the duty of 
 assailing the Indians at stated periods of the year ; 
 and heavy penalties were visited on all who held 
 any intercourse with them. Nor were the Indians
 
 64 THE FOUNDATION OP VIRGINIA. 
 
 backward in making reprisals, though their incursions 
 were generally attended with great loss to themselves. 
 For a score of years this state of things continued. 
 
 Opecancanough had now passed by nearly thirty 
 years the term of life allotted to man. His tall 
 frame was bowed, his eyes were dim ; but the old 
 fire burned within his breast, and he still cherished 
 an inextinguishable hatred of the white man, before 
 whose growing power the glory and empire of his 
 race were visibly declining. He was on the eve of 
 death, and he resolved before his dissolution to muster 
 all the strength of his people in a last convulsive 
 effort to annihilate the strangers. The onset was 
 commenced, and five hundred victims had been slain 
 in the outer settlements, when the Indians suddenly 
 fled, dismayed at their own deed, and at the recol- 
 lection of their weakness to cope with the English, 
 who had now recovered from their surprise, and 
 were advancing against them. A fierce war ensued. 
 Opecancanough died a captive, and the Indians were 
 decisively subdued. They humbly sued for peace, 
 and withdrew to the recesses of the interior, beyond 
 the reach of the English, who thenceforth were rarely 
 disturbed in their settlements. 
 
 As the Indians disappeared, the negroes entered 
 on the scene. In 1620 a gang of negroes was landed 
 in Virginia by a Dutch man-of-war, and attached the 
 disgrace and misery of an unhallowed institution to 
 the soil. For many years the number of negroes
 
 COTTON AND NEGROES. 65 
 
 was very limited, and did not influence the character 
 of the colony, which had now surmounted the dis- 
 eases of infancy, and had passed into the period of 
 robust and growing youth. From 3000 settlers in 
 1628, the number rose to 2 0,0 in 1 6 6 0. Twenty 
 churches had been erected ; and a free school was 
 open, not only to the children of the settlers, but of 
 the Indians. The rich soil, disciplined by careful 
 culture, yielded lavish harvests of grain and fruit. 
 Tobacco flourished, and became every year more 
 valuable. The cotton crops were also good. Here 
 is a glimpse of the homestead of " worthy " Captain 
 Matthews (about 1658), who maybe taken as a type 
 of a thriving planter : " He hath a fine house, and 
 all things answerable to it. He sows yearly store of 
 hemp and flax, and has it spun ; he keeps weavers, 
 and hath a tar-house ; he causes leather to be 
 dressed, and hath eight shoemakers employed in 
 their trade. He hath forty negro servants, and 
 brings them up to trades in his house. He yearly 
 sows abundance of wheat, barley, &c. ; kills store 
 of beeves, and sells them to victual the ships when 
 they come hither ; hath abundance of kine, a brave 
 dairy, swine in great numbers, and poultry." 
 
 The farms were situated at great distances from 
 each other ; and the wretched condition of the roads, 
 which at the best were only bridle-paths or cattle 
 tracks, rendered visiting a rare occurrence. Each 
 proprietor, living in the midst of his retainers and 
 
 (84J 5
 
 66 TUB FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 slaves, exercised a sort of feudal authority, which 
 was unrestrained by the criticism of neighbours, for 
 neighbours he had none. An impetuous love of 
 independence and impatience of control marked the 
 character of the people. Wild sports were passionately 
 followed ; and the fertility of the soil and the 
 geniality of the climate fostered a rude luxury. 
 
 Virginia was now fairly settled. Its people were 
 " Virginians born," and not English colonists. Its 
 planting had been accomplished. Of the future 
 growth of the fair and noble seedling it is no purpose 
 of this volume to speak.
 
 D US 
 
 L THE PILGRIM FATHEKS. 
 II. NEW PLYMOUTH. 
 III. MASSACHUSETTS. 
 IV. THE ENGLISH AND THE
 
 C01oraa6on .of iteto 
 
 I. THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 
 
 [HE colonization of New England was accom- 
 plished by men of a very different stamp 
 from those who first settled in Virginia. 
 The Pilgrim Fathers brought to the task tempera 
 chastened by long suffering, bodies inured to toil 
 and privation, and hands skilled in various handi- 
 crafts. Driven by the persecutions of Archbishop 
 Bancroft to quit their native land and to seek refuge 
 in Leyden, they began, after a residence of eleven or 
 twelve years in that city, to contemplate another 
 and more hazardous pilgrimage. With all their toil, 
 they gained but a poor livelihood, and endured many 
 hardships. This deterred many of their brethren in 
 England from joining them, and led their children 
 f o disperse, in search of more kindly fortunes, over 
 the Continent. The language of the Dutch had 
 never grown familiar to their tongues, nor had they 
 lost their abhorrence of the lax native fashion of 
 spending the Sabbath. They could not bear to 
 think that their sons and daughters would gradually
 
 70 THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 be incorporated with the Dutch, and would in an- 
 other generation or two forsake entirely their English 
 speech and habits. And not least in their scheme 
 of emigration, they were moved by a " great hope and 
 inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation, 
 or at least to make some way thereunto, for the 
 propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom 
 of Christ in these remote parts of the world ; yea, 
 though they should be but as stepping-stones unto 
 others for performing of so great a work." Upon 
 this plan they "pondered, debated, fasted, prayed, 
 and finally came to the resolution to remove." 
 
 The industry and sobriety of the English con- 
 gregation commanded the respect of the Dutch. 
 " Never/' said the magistrates of Leyden, " never 
 did we have any suit or accusation against any of 
 them." When their intention of emigrating was 
 h'rst rumoured, the Dutch would fain have had them 
 "go under them, and made them large offers;" but 
 they were bent on joining or founding an English 
 colony. At first they contemplated a settlement in 
 Guiana; but finally they decided upon establishing 
 themselves on the northern shores of Virginia. They 
 procured a patent from the Virginia Company, but 
 the King would give no further countenance to their 
 scheme than a promise not to molest them as long 
 as they behaved themselves. The terms which the 
 Company exacted were very hard for the poor emi- 
 grants, each of whom would, at the end of seven
 
 THE PURITAN FATHERS. 71 
 
 years, receive for his entire services oiily a tenth of 
 the dividend which the London merchants would 
 gain on every 100 which they invested. 
 
 Two small barks the Speedwell and Mayflower 
 were hired by the English in Leyden ; but as they 
 could carry only a portion of the band, the younger 
 and more hardy were chosen to go out as pioneers. 
 The rest were to remain, until the ships returned, 
 under the charge of John Robinson, the pastor of the 
 exiled congregation, a man of a devout and lofty 
 spirit, by nature gentle and kindly, yet not devoid 
 of that firmness without which the most admirable 
 qualities are of small account. Among the most not- 
 able of the emigrants were William Brewster, the 
 venerable ruling elder ; John Carver, who had con- 
 tributed a large proportion of the expenses of the 
 undertaking; William Bradford, still young in years 
 but old in wisdom and experience; Edward Wins- 
 low, a thoughtful, amiable man ; and Miles Standish, 
 the best "linguist" as well as the best soldier in the 
 party, who was the devoted friend of the congrega- 
 tion, although not a member of it. All the exiles 
 were " well weaned from the delicate milk of the 
 mother country, inured to the difficulties of a strange 
 land, industrious and frugal." " It is not with us," 
 said one of them, " as with men whom small things 
 can discourage." A solemn fast inaugurated the 
 enterprise. The emigrants were accompanied by the 
 whole congregation to the place of embarkation.
 
 72 THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 They cheered each other with prayers and with the 
 singing of psalms, -" which, indeed," says one of 
 them, " was the sweetest melody that ever mine ears 
 heard." Making for Southampton, the Speedwell 
 joined the Mayflower, her consort, with a number of 
 emigrants from England ; and soon after, both sailed 
 for America. Twice they had to put back, because 
 the Speedwell required repairs ; and the second time, 
 seeing that the captain was afraid of the voyage, 
 they dismissed her, and allowed those who wished 
 to return to London. On the 6th September ] 620, 
 one hundred emigrants in the Mayflower sailed for 
 the other side of the Atlantic. 
 
 Two months later, after a stormy and perilous 
 voyage, the Mayflower, with tattered canvas and 
 leaking sides, utterly incapable of weathering another 
 gale, came in sight of the white sand-hills of Cape 
 Cod, and, narrowly escaping destruction among the 
 treacherous shoals and breakers, crept to an anchor- 
 age in a little bay. The emigrants had intended to 
 arrive in the middle of September, but the unexpected 
 accidents which had occurred had delayed them till 
 the winter was just setting in. The country wore a 
 " bleak and weather-beaten face." The inhospitable 
 range of ice-clad rocks, the shifting sand-hills, the 
 bare and stunted trees and rusty-looking brushwood, 
 combined to give an air of desolation to the scene. 
 
 " The sea around was black with storms. 
 White were the shores with snow."
 
 MILES STANDISH'S EXPLORATION. 73 
 
 Having signed a solemn voluntary compact to de- 
 vise and obey such laws as might seem best for the 
 good of the colony, they elected John Carver governor 
 for the year. An exploration on foot, conducted by 
 sixteen men under Miles Standish, and occupying 
 three days, disclosed no available site for a settlement. 
 Another expedition of equal duration was made in 
 the shallop, with similar want of success. They 
 found traces of the natives, but saw none of them. 
 They were fortunate enough to discover a quantity 
 of maize stored up under ground. They also came 
 upon a burial-place of the Indians, and, opening some 
 of the tombs, beheld bones, weapons, and other 
 relics of the dead. Continuing their search, they 
 " found no more corn, nor anything else but graves." 
 William Bradford, one of the explorers, venturing 
 incautiously too near a tree, one of the boughs of 
 which was bent down in a peculiar manner, with a 
 noose fastened to the end of it, entangled his foot in 
 the rope, and was suddenly jerked up in the air by 
 one leg, to the amazement of his companions. This 
 was a device of the Indians for snaring deer. The 
 weather was bitterly cold, and the men were " tired 
 with marching up and down the steep hills and deep 
 valleys, which lay half a foot thick with snow." 
 Many received the seeds of death in the hardships 
 of this adventure. 
 
 The English now debated whether they should not 
 remain where they were, at least for the present ;
 
 74 THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 but the bleakness of the region, and the want of 
 water, led them to renew their search for a more 
 favourable spot. Governor Carver, Bradford, Wins- 
 low, Standish, and some others, with eight or ten 
 seamen, again set out in the shallop. The cold was ex- 
 treme ; the water froze upon their clothes, and 
 incased them, as it were, " in coats of iron." More 
 graves, and a group of empty wigwams, indicated 
 the neighbourhood of the natives. During the night 
 strange noises were heard, which they attributed to 
 wolves. Next morning a shower of arrows and a 
 hideous yell were their first introduction to the 
 savages. Standish, ready for any emergency, in- 
 stantly discharged his musket at the leafy screen 
 whence the missiles came. The others stood to their 
 arms, and the assailants fled. Resuming their voyage, 
 the explorers, for forty or fifty miles, sailed through 
 a blinding storm of snow and sleet without finding 
 a harbour. The gale rose, the sea swelled ; their 
 rudder was disabled, and they had to steer with oars. 
 Crowding all sail, in order to reach a haven which 
 the pilot professed to know, the mast snapped, and, 
 with the canvas, was carried away. Night feU, and 
 they drifted helplessly in the dark with a flood-tide. 
 Destruction seemed inevitable, when, with much 
 difficulty, they brought up the boat under the lee of 
 a small rise of land. Miserable with wet and cold, 
 a number of the men went on shore, heedless of the 
 danger of meeting the savages. The dawn showed
 
 A MEMORABLE DAY. 75 
 
 them that they were on a " small island, secure from 
 Indians." The day was spent partly in repose and 
 partly in repairing the disasters of the storm. The 
 next day was Sunday ; which, in spite of every con- 
 sideration demanding haste, they kept scrupulously 
 sacred, giving thanks to God for their deliverance, 
 and rousing the echoes with their hjnnns of praise. 
 On Monday (llth December, old style) they sounded 
 the harbour, and found it well suited for shipping. 
 They " marched also into the land, and found divers 
 corn-fields and little running brooks, a place very 
 good for situation ; and so returned to the ship 
 again with good news to the rest of their people, 
 which did much comfort their hearts." The choice 
 of this site is still celebrated by the descendants of 
 the Pilgrims on Forefathers' Day (which, however, 
 by a miscalculation as to the new style, is held a day 
 later than it ought to be) ; and the stone on which 
 the explorers first set foot is regarded with pious 
 veneration. 
 
 II. NEW PLYMOUTH. 
 
 Ity the end of the week the Mayflower brought 
 her company to spend the Sabbath in their future 
 home. With nothing but a rude screen of leafless 
 boughs between them and the blast, they hal- 
 lowed the day with pious ordinances and abstin- 
 ence from worldly labour. Next day (Monday,
 
 70 THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 the 25th), it is recorded not without exultation 
 that they went on shore, " some to fell timber, some 
 to saw, some to rive, and some to carry ; so no man 
 rested all that day." The settlers were divided into 
 families, and a plot of ground was assigned to each, 
 as the site of a house and garden. The building of 
 log-huts was carried on with great energy ; but frost 
 and storms often put a stop to work for days together, 
 or undid what had been done. The Pilgrims now 
 began to be in a sad plight. Enfeebled by the long 
 sea-voyage in a narrow, crowded ship ; worn by in- 
 cessant toil and painful anxiety ; exposed to the 
 rigours of an almost polar winter ; supplied with 
 scanty and unwholesome food ; ill-clad, ill-sheltered, 
 poorly armed, and surrounded by savages whose 
 hostility they dreaded, there was enough in their 
 situation to create dismay, if not despair. But in 
 the midst of all their sorrows and dangers, the stout- 
 hearted, God-fearing exiles were full of faith and 
 hope. " They knew that they were Pilgrims, and 
 looked not much on these things, but lifted their 
 eyes to heaven, their dearest country, and quieted 
 their spirits." 
 
 A fatal sickness wasted the heroic band. The 
 common- house was crowded with invalids. " It 
 pleased God," says Bradford, " to visit us with a 
 deatli daily. So very general was the disease, that 
 the living were scarce able to bury the dead ; and 
 the well were not in any measure sufficient to tend
 
 NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE INDIANS. 77 
 
 the sick." In four months half the company was 
 carried off. Carver was amongst the victims, and 
 Bradford was chosen governor in his stead. The 
 dead were buried in secret, and the graves were 
 levelled and sown, in order that the Indians might 
 not, by counting them, learn how sadly the colony 
 was reduced in strength. 
 
 Early in March, to the solace of the Pilgrims, 
 came "warm and fair weather, and the birds sang 
 in the woods most pleasantly." They were relieved 
 from the apprehensions of attack by the natives by 
 the sudden appearance in their midst of Samoset, an 
 Indian who had learned a little English of the fisher- 
 men at Penobscot, and who greeted them with the 
 words, " Welcome, Englishmen ! " From this friendly 
 visitor the settlers learned that the district in which 
 they had settled had been depopulated some years 
 before by a fearful plague ; that their nearest neigh- 
 bours were the subjects of the sachem Massasoit, of 
 whom he was one ; and that towards the south-east 
 dwelt the tribe of Nausets, who bore ill-will towards 
 the English, because a party of that nation had 
 kidnapped some of their people. Through Samoset 
 and another Indian, named Squanto (who was one 
 of those who had been kidnapped, but had afterwards 
 escaped), negotiations were opened with Massasoit, 
 which led to a visit from that chief. He was 
 received by the settlers with due respect, and pro- 
 pitiated by a present of some trinkets, together with
 
 78 THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 " a pot of strong water, a good quantity of biscuit, 
 and some butter." A treaty of mutual friendship 
 and protection was formed between Massasoit and the 
 English, which remained in force for fifty- four years. 
 
 In the beginning of April the Mayflower returned 
 to England ; and we may be sure it was with heav}' 
 hearts that the colonists watched the lessening speck 
 upon the ocean, which, when it disappeared below 
 the horizon, broke, as it were, the last outward link 
 which connected them with the old country. They 
 were now left entirely to their own resources. From 
 the store-pits of the Indians they had procured ten 
 bushels of Indian corn, with which they sowed twenty 
 acres, under the guidance of Squanto, who showed 
 how to manure it with fish, after the native fashion. 
 The summer brought abundance of grapes and berrias. 
 Wild-flowers of brilliant hue and fragrant odour 
 added a charm to the scene. The fine weather was 
 spent in exploring the country. A deputation went 
 to pay their respects to Massasoit at his head-quar- 
 ters ; but, although cordially received, they were some- 
 what disturbed by the poverty and filth in which 
 the great sachem lived. Three small fishes were 
 served as a banquet for the two envoys and forty 
 natives. Expeditions also visited Nauset, Namosket, 
 and Boston Bay. 
 
 " All the summer there was no want." The rivers 
 and bay supplied plenty cod and bass, and there was 
 also " great store of wild turkeys and venison." The
 
 SUFFERINGS OF TIIE SETTLERS. 79 
 
 harvest turned out well, especially in the maize 
 fields. Thirty new comers, who arrived from Eng- 
 land in November, were gladly welcomed ; for the 
 diminished number of the little band required recruit- 
 ing. The addition enabled them to show a bold 
 front to the Indians ; and when Canonicus, chief of 
 the Narragansetts, sent a bundle of arrows wrapped 
 in the skin of a snake, as a declaration of war, he 
 was glad to retract the challenge when Governor 
 Bradford returned the snake-skin filled with powder 
 and ball. The second winter was spent in compara- 
 tive comfort ; but throughout the whole of the next 
 two years the Pilgrims suffered from want of food. 
 Their crops were poor ; and their scanty stores were 
 diminished by the inroads of a disreputable rabble 
 of Englishmen sent out by Mr. Weston, one of the 
 chief members of the Company at home, to form a 
 rival colony. Men were often seen staggering from 
 want of food ; and but for the shell-fish on the 
 beach, they would all have been starved. Some- 
 times they were for two or three months together 
 destitute of bread or any kind of corn. At one 
 time when they were reduced to one pint of corn, 
 which, being parched and distributed, gave to each 
 person only five kernels, several new colonists joined 
 the settlement without bringing any contribution to 
 their stores. The best fare the colony could then 
 offer was " a lobster or a piece of fish, without bread 
 or anything but a cup of fair spring water."
 
 80 THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 An arrival, of between sixty and seventy re- 
 cruits, in the third year, threatened to aggravate 
 the distress which prevailed ; but, fortunately, the 
 harvest proved plentiful, and " all had, one way or 
 other, pretty well to bring the year about." It was 
 during this year that the system of community of 
 goods, under which, rather from poverty than choice, 
 the settlement had started, was abandoned. The 
 new plan, of giving every one a piece of land for his 
 own benefit, " had very good success ; for it made 
 all hands very industrious, and so, much more corn 
 was planted than otherwise would have been, and it 
 gave far better content." 
 
 The Pilgrims this year experienced a " remark- 
 able providence." A long and severe drought had 
 parched the land and wasted the crops. The middle 
 of summer arrived without any sign of relaxation, 
 and they began to lose heart. In their distress 
 they humbled themselves before God, in fasting and 
 prayer. Their devotions lasted seven or eight hours. 
 When they began the sky was bright and glaring ; 
 before they had finished clouds lowered overhead, 
 and at the close of the service they walked home 
 thankfully through a shower of rain. For fourteen 
 days there fell "such soft, sweet, and moderate showers, 
 as it was hard to say whether their withered corn or 
 drooping affections were most quickened and revived." 
 
 The infant settlement had now got over some of 
 its gravest difficulties. It was learning to adapt
 
 NEW PLYMOUTH AS IT WAS. 81 
 
 itself to the circumstances of its position, to guard 
 against many of the hardships and privations which 
 beset it, and to alleviate those which it could not 
 avert. A visitor to Plymouth about this time would 
 have seen a cluster of rude wooden cabins studding 
 the gently sloping crown of a high bluff. Built 
 of logs, with well-cemented seams, these dwellings 
 afforded at least a snug shelter from the weather ; 
 and in their new prosperity the settlers had indulged 
 themselves in the luxury of windows, which they 
 formed by piercing holes in the walls and filling them 
 with oiled paper. The houses, about thirty-two in 
 number, were ranged chiefly in two rows, forming a 
 tolerably regular thoroughfare, which, in memory of the 
 first exile of the Pilgrims, was called Leyden Street/ At 
 the lower end stood a large wooden shanty, containing 
 the common stores of the plantation. At the upper 
 end rose a little hill, surmounted by a fort, a square 
 building, with a flat roof, which served as a platform 
 for half a dozen cannon to command the surrounding 
 country. From this eminence the visitor might 
 survey the entire colony. The boats of the settlers 
 might be seen at high tide dancing over the waters 
 of the wide natural harbour, or at the ebb lying 
 stranded among the rank sea-grass and black kelp of 
 the muddy shoals. Beyond, the open bay, green and 
 foam-flecked, stretched to the horizon. Nearer might 
 be seen the little village of the Pilgrims nestling to 
 the bosom of the hill, intersected by a rapid, brawl- 
 
 (84) 6
 
 82 TUB COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ing stream, and enclosed within a ring of stout pali- 
 sades. Groups of settlers might be observed at 
 work ; some in the irregular unfenced fields which 
 had been rescued from the surrounding wilderness, 
 digging, hoeing, or perhaps manuring the ground 
 with loads of herring as bright as silver ; others 
 gathering crabs and oysters in the slime of the 
 shallows, fishing for cod with net or line in the 
 deep water, or ranging the dark pine woods in search 
 of game. To work of some sort or another must every 
 one put his hand. Plymouth was no place for idlers. 
 On the Sabbath the settlers might be seen winding 
 in procession up the village street towards the fort, 
 the lower part of which served as a church. " They 
 assemble," says De Rosiere, a visitor from the neigh- 
 bouring Dutch colony of Long Island, " by beat of 
 drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of 
 the captain's door ; they have their cloaks on, and 
 place themselves in order, three abreast, and are led 
 by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes 
 the governor, in a long robe ; beside him, on the 
 right hand, comes the preacher, with his cloak on ; 
 and on the left hand, the captain, with his side-arms 
 and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand ; 
 and so they march in good order ; and each sets his 
 arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on 
 their guard night and day." 
 
 By 1628 Plymouth was in a thriving condition. 
 There were about one hundred and eighty inhabitants,
 
 SABBATH-DAY IN NEW PLYMOUTH 
 
 Page 82.
 
 PEACE IN TIIE COLONY. 83 
 
 " some cattle and goats, and many swine and poul- 
 try." Several children had been born in the settle- 
 ment, which the English regarded as their permanent 
 abiding-place. " It pleased the Lord to give the 
 plantation peace and health and contented minds, 
 and so to bless their labours as they had corn suffi- 
 cient and some to spare to others, with what they 
 first brought with them." Instead of being depend- 
 ent on the Indians for supplies, they could now, out 
 of their abundance, sell grain to the natives, receiving 
 furs and other commodities in exchange. From a 
 trading excursion up the Kennebec River, made in 
 an open boat, Winslow and some others returned with 
 " seven hundred pounds of beaver, besides some other 
 furs, having little or nothing e^ but corn" to trade 
 with. The settlers were thus enabled to despatch 
 cargoes to England : and fifty English ships fre- 
 quented the coast in the fishing season, thus enlarging 
 their market for buying and selling. In their grow- 
 ing prosperity the settlers found the means of ridding 
 themselves of the incubus of the proprietary in 
 England, and purchased the freehold of their planta- 
 tion. The gratification which they derived from 
 their brightening prospects was, however, clouded 
 by the news of the death of Robinson, their old and 
 beloved pastor in Leyden.
 
 84 THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 III. MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 The success of the Plymouth colony, and the con- 
 tinued oppression of the Nonconformists in England, 
 aided the colonization of New England. A Company 
 was formed, under royal charter, to establish a colony 
 at Massachusetts Bay. In 1628 John Endicott of 
 Dorchester led nearly a hundred emigrants thither, 
 who settled in Charlestown. In the following year 
 two hundred more arrived. They found only a few 
 mud hovels and log cabins, and one or two unpro- 
 ductive fields. The prevailing forest mocked their 
 hunger with rank, unprofitable vegetation. The 
 sun was scorching ; the soil was parched ; the wells 
 were dried up. The wretched strangers sank, day 
 by day and died for want of a cup of cold water 
 and a proper meal Winter aggravated their suffer- 
 ings ; and above eighty, nearly half of the little 
 colony, died before the spring. Meanwhile the tide 
 of immigration flowed in rapidly. From fourteen to 
 seventeen ships sailed from England to Massachusetts 
 in 1630, and carried over nearly fifteen hundred 
 persons, "many of them men of high endowments, 
 large fortune, and the best education." They received 
 a dismal greeting from the starving colonists. The 
 provisions which the new comers brought with them 
 were soon consumed, and then the distress became 
 terribly fatal. Before December two hundred had
 
 INTOLERANCE RAMPANT. 85 
 
 perished, and one hundred had fled from the settle- 
 ment in despair to England. Shell-fish served for 
 meat ; ground nuts and acorns for bread. It is said 
 that just as Governor Winthrop was distributing to 
 a poor man the last handful of meal, a ship bearing 
 supplies hove in sight. The distress of the colony 
 was now at an end, and a period of prosperity 
 ensued. From Massachusetts sprang several other 
 settlements, of which the chief were those of Rhode 
 Island and Connecticut. 
 
 Although the people of Massachusetts had crossed 
 the Atlantic to gain tolerance for themselves, they 
 had no idea of practising it towards others. Con- 
 sequently, when Roger Williams, " a young minister, 
 godly and zealous, having precious gifts," proclaimed 
 the sanctity of the conscience and the duty of 
 religious toleration, the magistrates and ministers 
 were instantly in arms against him. The favour 
 which the youthful preacher gained in the eyes of 
 the people of Salem only aggravated the dislike 
 with which the authorities regarded him; and after 
 a time a sentence of exile was passed upon him. It 
 was the depth of winter when the tidings reached 
 him, and he turned his steps from Salem in the 
 midst of a blinding snow-storm. " For fourteen 
 weeks he was sorely tossed in a bitter season, not 
 knowing what bread or bed did mean." In his dis- 
 tress the Indians succoured him. He had always 
 been their friend, and had learned their language in
 
 86 THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 order to preach to them. They now received him as 
 an honoured guest, and ministered to his wants. 
 In this seclusion he formed his plans for the estab- 
 lishment of a colony where there should be an 
 entire freedom from religious persecution. He chose 
 Rhode Island, on Narragansett Bay, which he held 
 as a gift from the Indian chief, a large domain, as 
 the site of the colony; and proceeded thither with 
 five companions in a frail canoe. He bestowed upon 
 the place the name of Providence, desiring that it 
 " might be a shelter for persons distressed for con- 
 science." To his fellow-colonists he set a noble 
 example of industry. " My time," he says, " was 
 not spent altogether in spiritual labours, but day and 
 night, at home and abroad, on the land and water, 
 at the hoe, at the oar, for bread." 
 
 Reports of the rich fertility of the valley of the 
 Connecticut had long been current in Massachusetts. 
 In 1635 a body of settlers set forth to possess it. 
 They numbered sixty, including women and children, 
 and their path lay through the primeval forest. It 
 was autumn before they started, and the journey 
 proved unexpectedly long. The winter set in sud- 
 denly, and with extreme severity. The vessels which 
 were to bring them supplies were frozen in the 
 rivers. The ground was covered under a great 
 depth of snow. The travellers suffered from want 
 of shelter and food, and many of the cattle perished 
 from the same cause.
 
 EXPLORING THE INTERIOR. 87 
 
 Next summer, however, another expedition started 
 for the same goal. The second band numbered about 
 a hundred. The distance they had to travel was a 
 hundred miles, and they moved at the rate of scarcely 
 ten miles a day. Their march through the pathless 
 woods was directed by a compass. They drove before 
 them a herd of one hundred and sixty cattle, which 
 supplied them with milk. They hewed their way 
 through the tangled woods, and bridged with felled 
 trees the streams which they could not ford. Each 
 evening they pitched their tents by the side of a 
 pleasant stream. The vigorous exhortations of their 
 preacher, Thomas Hooker, and their own songs, 
 beguiled the way. The fruitfulness of the region in 
 which they settled repaid them for the toil of the 
 journey. 
 
 Such were the early incidents of colonization in 
 New England. After their first trials, however, 
 the progress of the settlements was steady and con- 
 tinuous. 
 
 The soil of New England is not generally fertile. 
 The winter engrosses half the year, and during its 
 more austere periods covers the ground for months 
 with an unmelted mass of snow. Such a land only 
 stimulated the steadfast, patient industry of the 
 colonists, which, moreover, it did not fail to reward. 
 The rough unyielding hill-side and niggard plains suc- 
 cumbed to the unremitting labours of the persevering 
 settlers; but not until they had been taught the pre-
 
 88 THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 cious lessons of patience, frugality, and faith. " New 
 England was rich in the want of gold/' There was 
 nothing to divert her people from the steady cultiva- 
 tion of her natural resources. The result was, that 
 agriculture and commerce advanced surely, if not 
 rapidly. A number of families from Yorkshire intro- 
 duced woollen and cotton manufactures. The fisheries 
 and timber trade yielded large profits, and in time 
 ship-building was added to the occupations of the 
 colony. The necessary hours of toil and habits of 
 economy allowed little scope for luxury or sports. 
 Devout and sober-minded, the people of New Eng- 
 land were rigidly severe in enforcing the observance 
 of religious rites, and in denouncing the vanities of 
 the world. No one might " give offence to his 
 neighbour by the excessive length of his hair, 
 embroidered and needle- work caps, gold and silver 
 girdles, immoderate great sleeves and slashed ap- 
 parel." Dancing, gambling, and tobacco- smoking 
 were utterly prohibited ; and the man who uttered 
 an oath had his tongue locked in a cleft stick for 
 half-an-hour. Music, and the fine arts generally, 
 were looked upon with disfavour ; but the benefits 
 of a liberal education were fully appreciated, and 
 literature was cherished. " When New England was 
 poor, and they were but few in number, there was a 
 spirit to encourage learning." Harvard College was 
 founded in 1 636; and the first printing-press in the 
 United States was established at Cambridge in 1631).
 
 COLONISTS ON THE MARCH. 
 
 Page 87.
 
 A TERRIBLE ENCOUNTER. 89 
 
 IV. THE ENGLISH AND THE INDIANS. 
 
 Scrupulous as the settlers of New England had 
 been in their dealings with the aborigines, they 
 could not escape that apparently inevitable destiny 
 which leads the white man and the coloured races 
 to fatal misunderstandings. During the early years 
 of the colony the English and the Indians remained 
 on amicable terms. Towards the year 1638, how- 
 ever, the Pequods on the Connecticut began to way- 
 lay and murder straggling settlers, and open war at 
 length broke out. About eighty Englishmen marched 
 to assail the two chief camps of the enemy. Bancroft 
 has graphically painted the terrible encounter : " As 
 the English boats sailed by the places where the rude 
 works of the natives frowned defiance, it was rumoured 
 through the tribe that its enemies had vanished 
 through fear. Exultation followed, and hundreds of 
 the Pequods spent much of the last night of their lives 
 in revelry, at a time when the sentinels of the English 
 were within hearing of their songs. Two hours be- 
 fore day the soldiers of Connecticut put themselves in 
 motion towards the enemy, and as the light of morn- 
 ing dawned they made their attack on the principal 
 fort, which stood in a strong position on the summit 
 of a hill. A watch-dog bayed an alarm at their 
 approach ; the Indians awoke, rallied and resisted as 
 well as bows and arrows could resist weapons of
 
 90 THE COLONIZATION OP NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 steel. The superiority of numbers was with them ; 
 and fighting closely, hand to hand, though the 
 massacre spread from wigwam to wigwam, victory 
 was tardy. ' We must burn them ! ' shouted Mason, 
 and cast a firebrand to the windward among the 
 light mats of the Indian cabins. Hardly could the 
 English withdraw to encompass the place before the 
 whole encampment was in a blaze. The carnage 
 was complete : about six hundred Indians (men, 
 women, and children) perished in an hour. Two 
 
 only of the English fell in the battle The 
 
 remnants of the Pequods were pursued into their 
 hiding-places : every wigwam was burned, every 
 settlement was broken up, every corn-field laid 
 waste. The few that survived (about two hundred), 
 surrendering in despair, were enslaved by the Eng- 
 lish, or incorporated among the Mohegans and Narra- 
 gansetts. There remained not a sannup nor squaw, 
 not a warrior nor child of the Pequod race. A nation 
 had disappeared from the family of man." 
 
 After this awful catastrophe the land had rest 
 from savage violence for forty years. During that 
 period the English did not neglect to exert them- 
 selves to educate and convert the Indians. The 
 settlers subscribed to send missionaries amongst them. 
 Schools were founded, and books in their own dia- 
 lects printed for their use. The two Matthews, 
 father and son, and John Eliot, distinguished them- 
 selves as zealous apostles to the natives. The latter
 
 FEUDS BETWEEN THE INDIANS AND ENGLISH. 91 
 
 established a community of Indians at Naritick, not 
 far from Boston, where they were taught various 
 industries, such as agriculture, flax and hemp dressing, 
 and were instructed in the truths of Christianity. 
 
 Notwithstanding these manifestations of good- 
 will on the part of the English, the Indians were 
 oppressed with a sense of their own helplessness and 
 distrust of the new comers. The soil which had 
 belonged to them for generations had passed into 
 the hands of the white men. Their fathers' bones 
 lay in the lands of the stranger. True, every inch 
 of ground had been bought and paid for; but to the 
 Indians' mind, unable to appreciate the comforts of 
 civilized life, appeared only the broad patent fact, 
 that they were gradually being dispossessed of their 
 birth-right, that their hunting-grounds were being 
 converted into fields and home-steads, and that there 
 would soon not be an inch of ground which they could 
 call their own. Over the camp fire the young Indians 
 murmured indignantly at this prospect. Rumours 
 of this gathering rage reached the English. A vague 
 terror threw both parties into a sort of frenzy. The 
 English believed that a general conspiracy to destroy 
 them had been concocted by the Indians. The 
 Indians attributed a similar design to the English. 
 Each felt that a decisive struggle was at hand. A 
 few petty hostilities and reprisals hurried them into 
 a war to the death. Philip of Pokanoket, son of 
 Massasoit, the chief who received the Pilgrims so
 
 92 THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 affectionately, assumed the leadership of the Indians. 
 The war was a perpetual series of ambuscades and 
 skirmishes. The Indians were ever on the alert to 
 cut off the stragglers on the roads, to fire on un- 
 guarded farm-houses, to surprise the reapers reposing 
 in the fields, or the congregations engaged in woi'ship. 
 " Bloody Brook," near Deerfield, takes its name 
 from a massacre of the English. The little stream 
 then ran by the side of a few corn-fields which had 
 been rescued from the surrounding forest. Here a 
 picked body of young men, who were conveying the 
 harvests of Deerfield to the lower towns, halted for a 
 moment in order to give water to their teams, and 
 to pluck the grapes which hung in rich clusters 
 over the road. Suddenly there was a rustle among 
 the tangled wild grass. Was it the wolf or the 
 rattlesnake ? In an instant a thousand Indian 
 warriors started from the covert and let fly a cloud 
 of arrows on the devoted little band of English. 
 Each party fought from behind trees. The settlers, 
 overpowered by numbers, were quickly mowed 
 down. The foremost of them, turning round to 
 encourage his comrades, saw, in despair, that only 
 seven remained alive. To continue the contest was 
 hopeless. Dashing their arms in the faces of the 
 Indians they tried to escape. All, however, were shot 
 down save one, who hid himself in the water, clinging 
 to the trunk of an old tree which was lying on the 
 edge of the stream, with his mouth just above water,
 
 THE INDIANS SUBDUED. 93 
 
 and his head screened by the brush-wood. When 
 night fell, and the Indians withdrew, he hastened to 
 Hodley to report the massacre, of which he was the 
 sole survivor. 
 
 While the natives carried on the war in this 
 fashion, the English mustered their young men to go 
 forth against the camp of the enemy and destroy 
 them. No quarter was given on either side. Against 
 the combined movements and continuous assaults of 
 the English the Indians could not long make head. 
 Without shelter and food they took refuge in the 
 swamp, where the white men dared not follow 
 them. " They prowled the forests, and pawed up 
 the snow, to gather nuts and acorns ; they dug the 
 earth for ground-nuts ; they ate horse-flesh as a 
 luxury ; they sank down from feebleness and want 
 of food." 
 
 But King Philip was still undaunted. There was 
 a mysterious ubiquity about his movements which 
 terrified many of the English. Whenever there was 
 an attack more daring, a carnage more appalling than 
 ordinary, Philip was supposed to be there. His path 
 seemed to be watered with blood and lit by blazing 
 home-steads. At length his wife and child fell 
 into the hands of the English. " My heart breaks," 
 he cried in his agony, "and now I am ready to die!" 
 Even his own men began to plot against him ; and 
 soon after he was shot by a treacherous Indian. 
 His wife and child were sold into slavery.
 
 94 THE COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Thus the Narragansetts shared the fate of the 
 Pequods. Scarcely a hundred of them survived. 
 The English had also suffered severely. Twelve 
 towns were destroyed. Six hundred men were slain, 
 and six hundred dwellings were laid in ashes. But 
 after these calamities there was peace in the land. 
 
 Tragedies, somewhat similar in character, but less 
 fearfully profuse in bloodshed, were enacted in most 
 of the other settlements before the white men and 
 the red men settled down into relations which were 
 marked by mutual friendship, or at least indifference. 
 This, however, is a page in the history of coloniza- 
 tion which one reads with horror, and from which 
 one turns with relief.* 
 
 * The truth of the assertion, that a gradual extinction has been the fate of the 
 coloured aborigines, has been challenged by eminent authorities ; and it is satisfac- 
 tory to know that, according to the latest and most authentic evidence, the Indiav. 
 population of North America is, in some districts at least, not less numerous than it 
 was two centuries ago, while its condition is greatly ameliorated.
 
 anb |)wiTSirlbanh. 
 
 JHE history of Pennsylvania is remarkable for 
 the exemption of the colony from those dis- 
 asters which usually attend the infancy of 
 such projects, and for the perpetuation of the most 
 friendly relations between the settlers and the abori- 
 gines. These happy results were mainly due to the 
 wise head and loving heart of the man who directed 
 the enterprise William Penn. Trained in the college, 
 the camp, and the court ; a student of men as well as 
 of books, with sympathies and experience enlarged 
 by foreign travel ; full of a religious enthusiasm which 
 suffering had deepened and purified, and which perse- 
 cution had taught him to combine with a kindly 
 tolerance for others, Penn was peculiarly fitted for the 
 great work to which he devoted himself. His father, 
 Admiral Penn, a brave but worldly-minded man, 
 had ingratiated himself with King Charles II., by 
 his offers, during the interregnum, to betray the 
 Commonwealth, and by his subsequent services 
 against the Dutch in 1665. Vain and ambitious, 
 the old admiral desired to gratify those feelings by 
 
 (84) 7
 
 98 PENN AND PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 securing honours and advancement, not for himself, 
 but for his son. He exerted himself to multiply 
 and develop his estates, in order that his son might 
 enjoy the revenues. He obtained the promise of a 
 peerage from the king only in order that he might 
 found a noble family. All his hopes were thus 
 bound up in the future of his eldest son, and in the 
 plans he had formed for his benefit. William Penn 
 seemed likely to fulfil his father's aspirations. Of a 
 comely presence, ready wit, and prepossessing man- 
 ners, he bade fair by his own merits to second the 
 admiral's influence. Just then the sect of Quakers 
 was rising into notice. George Fox, the Nottingham 
 shoemaker, had raised a crusade against steeple- 
 churches, hireling ministers, and the recognition of 
 different orders of men. This protest of the " man in 
 the leather breeches," exaggerated and absurd in many 
 respects, was only the natural reaction against the 
 corruption and worldliness of 'the times, and elicited 
 much sympathy among pious and earnest people. 
 Young Penn, disgusted with the licentious and fri- 
 volous ways of his companions at Oxford, where he 
 was now studying, had already begun, to dream of 
 pure and happy Utopia in that grand New World 
 which he had heard his father and other travellers 
 describe. The preaching of Thomas Loe, one of the 
 disciples of George Fox, made such an impression on 
 him that he joined the nonconformists who were 
 then agitating the university, and was fined, and
 
 A CHANGE IN PENN's CHARACTER. 99 
 
 afterwards expelled for this conduct. His expulsion 
 was a severe blow to his father's pride. William 
 was coldly received at home, and quickly despatched 
 on a foreign tour, in order to be cured of his non- 
 conformist views. He was furnished with introduc- 
 tions to the highest circles, and amid the novel and 
 impressive scenes and brilliant society of France and 
 Italy, he soon forgot his recent austerity of demean- 
 our. He returned from the Continent a dashing 
 young gallant, who could wield a rapier, turn a 
 compliment, or figure in a minuet with courtly ease 
 and grace. His father was delighted with the change 
 in his son's manners ; but his delight was not of long 
 continuance. It was at this time that the plague 
 fell upon London, when men dropped down lifeless 
 in the streets, and ten thousand deaths were reported 
 in one day. Such an awful visitation was enough 
 to awaken religious emotions even in the most 
 thoughtless and indifferent mind, and it did not 
 fail to revive the pious enthusiasm of William Penn. 
 The admiral was absent on service against the Dutch, 
 and on his return was surprised and mortified at his 
 son's relapse into what he deemed a morbid and 
 irrational melancholy. Again he endeavoured to 
 restore his former gaiety by a change of scene. He 
 sent him to the court of the Irish Viceroy, where he 
 took a fancy to soldiering, and acquired some experi- 
 ence in military affairs, although he never entered 
 the army. At Cork, William Penn again heard his
 
 100 PENN AND PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 old friend Loe, the itinerant Quaker, preach of the 
 faith which " overcomes the world." From that 
 moment he was possessed with " a deep sense of the 
 vanity of the world, and the irreligiousness of its 
 religions," which no amount of scorn or contumely, 
 neither the persecutions of the law nor the threats 
 and upbraidings of his father could unsettle. When 
 he refused to doff his hat, even to his father or the 
 king, the admiral in a rage turned him out of doors. 
 He was sent to the Tower for heresy, and menaced 
 with imprisonment for life unless he would recant. 
 Brought to trial for having spoken at a Quaker 
 meeting, the jury refused to convict him. Although 
 reviled by the judge, and locked up without food or 
 water for two days, the jurors adhered to their 
 verdict. The court fined them for contumacy. Such 
 was trial by jury in those days ! 
 
 It was not long before father and son were re- 
 conciled. Before his death, which took place soon 
 after, the admiral owned that he had spent his life 
 in aiming after worthless things, and almost accepted 
 the views of his Quaker son. Although inheriting 
 an ample fortune, and mated with a lovely and 
 accomplished wife, Penn did not abandon the un- 
 popular cause with which he had identified himself. 
 He was again imprisoned for several months, and on 
 his release travelled with George Fox and other 
 Quakers to preach the gospel to the Dutch and Ger- 
 mans, on whom they produced a deep impression.
 
 PENN'S GREAT IDEA. 101 
 
 The great idea of Penn's life was now approaching 
 its consummation. George Fox had just returned 
 from a visit to America. Travelling across the 
 "great bogs" of the Dismal Swamp, and "commonly 
 laying abroad o'nights in the woods by a fire," Fox 
 had reached North Carolina, and received a warm 
 welcome from the inhabitants. His description of 
 these simple, honest exiles from the busy world, 
 "hermits with wives and children/' living in close com- 
 munion with nature and in a state of freedom, and con- 
 trolled only by conscience and reason, revived Penn's 
 youthful dream of a free and virtuous state in the 
 New World. Of all classes of nonconformists, the 
 Quakers were most cruelly and unjustly used. They 
 were hated not only by the Church and the King, 
 but by the other dissenters and by the Protector. 
 New England vied with old England in scourging 
 them. Everywhere persecution followed them. For 
 weary years they were whipped, pilloried, cast to 
 rot in loathsome dungeons, mutilated, and not un- 
 frequently hanged. As no other community could 
 be found to tolerate them, it became absolutely 
 necessary that they should create one of their own. 
 Penn had taken a deep interest in the migration of 
 a body of Quakers to New Jersey, and he now 
 resolved to found a colony himself. He obtained a 
 grant of land on the north bank of the Delaware, in 
 liquidation of a debt of 16,000 which the Govern- 
 ment owed his father. The province thus acquired
 
 102 PENN AND PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 contained no less than 47,000 square miles, being 
 nearly as large as England. But it was as yet a 
 wilderness, covered for the most part with tangled 
 forests, and dotted only at rare intervals with the 
 wigwams of an Indian camp or the solitary hut of 
 wood and thatch of some Dutch or Swedish emigrant. 
 A bare mountain chain intersected the country. 
 Although the soil did not possess the spontaneous 
 fertility of Virginia, it was capable of fruitful culti- 
 vation. The woods abounded with game and the 
 rivers with fish. 
 
 Penn's last visit to the court was characteristic. 
 When he received his charter from the hands of the 
 king he observed his majesty take off his hat. "Friend 
 Charles," he asked, " why dost thou not keep thy 
 hat on thy head?" "Oh," replied the king, good- 
 humouredly, "it is the custom, friend, in this place 
 for only one person to remain covered at a time." 
 It was on the 1st of September 1G82 that Penn 
 sailed for his new realm. He left behind his wife 
 and children, in order to spare them the privations 
 of an infant settlement. He gave them his counsel 
 in a touching letter. His means being much reduced 
 through his efforts for the public good, he reminded 
 his wife of the necessity of economy, but at the same 
 time desired her to be liberal in the education of 
 their children. Looking forward to the time when 
 they would join him in the colony, he was anxious 
 that the two boys should acquire a sound knowledge
 
 PENN LANDS IN THE NEW WORLD. 103 
 
 of building, ship- car pen try, surveying, navigation, and 
 especially agriculture, and that Letty should learn 
 to manage a household. " Let my children," he said, 
 "be husbandmen and housewives." On the 27th of 
 October, after a melancholy voyage, during which 
 the small-pox carried off thirty of the hundred 
 passengers, Penn first set foot on the New World, at 
 Newcastle. On the following day, in the presence 
 of a crowd of emigrants who had preceded him, he 
 received possession of the land by the typical delivery 
 of a lump of earth and a cup of water. Ascending 
 the stately stream of the Delaware to Upland (after- 
 wards named Chester), then the chief place in the 
 province, he convoked a parliament, who in three 
 days adopted a constitution passed a number of 
 laws, and then returned to their ploughs and oxen. 
 The constitution secured freedom of thought, sacred- 
 ness of person and property, and popular control over 
 all the powers of the state. It recognised the right 
 of every child to instruction, and of every adult to a 
 vote. Penn's next duty was to choose a site for and 
 prepare the plan of a metropolis. He would not 
 allow the capital of his dominions to grow up as 
 accident or caprice might direct. With characteristic 
 foresight he designed it from the first with an eye 
 to its future greatness. Two noble streets were to 
 front the river. The High Street was to be a 
 magnificent avenue, one hundred feet wide, bordered 
 with trees and beds of flowers. Disliking the closely
 
 104 PENN AND PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 packed towns of the Old World, he desired that 
 gardens might be mingled with the streets, so as to 
 form a "greene country town." 
 
 Before, however, a single house could be erected, a 
 throng of emigrants arrived, not only from Eng- 
 land but from Holland, Germany, and Sweden, and 
 other parts to which the news had spread that Wil- 
 liam Penn, the Quaker, had opened " an asylum for 
 the good and oppressed of every nation." In the 
 absence of houses, they took shelter in the large 
 wives which were to be found on the banks of the 
 Delaware. Their sufferings must have been severe, 
 but they bore them with patience and fortitude. 
 " Delicate women, used to all the luxuries of the 
 earth in England, went out to help their fathers and 
 husbands: they brought in the wood and water; 
 they cooked the victuals with their own hands ; 
 they tended sheep and pigs, game and poultry ; 
 some of them acted as labourers while the house was 
 building, anxious to carry mortar or lend a hand to 
 saw a block of wood, as the case required. If a 
 murmur once arose, the thought of that ' woful 
 Europe ' which they had left behind soon checked it, 
 and all worked on cheerily."* 
 
 The first building completed was used as a tavern, 
 exchange, and ferry-house. But others soon followed. 
 In August 1683, save three or four little cabins, the 
 only dwellings were the caves by the river-side, 
 
 * DUon's " Life of Penn."
 
 FOUNDS A NEW CITY. 105 
 
 hollow trees, or temporary tents. The deer browsed 
 on their accustomed pastures, and the conies disported 
 round their ancient burrows. If a stranger ventured 
 but a little way from the river he was lost in the mazes 
 of a dense forest. But within a few months after the 
 foundation of the city, eighty houses and cottages were 
 ready. One year after Penn landed, a hundred houses 
 had been built, the whole plan of the city had been 
 laid out, sixty vessels had arrived in the Delaware, 
 and more than three hundred farms had been settled. 
 Before another year was over the place contained 
 about six hundred houses, and the school-master and 
 the printing-press had begun their work. With 
 just exultation might the leader of this great enter- 
 prise write to his friends, " I must without vanity 
 say I have led the greatest colony into America that 
 ever man did on private credit." 
 
 But it was in his treatment of the natives that 
 Penn's character was most nobly displayed. With 
 fervent faith in the inherent virtues of the Indians, 
 he would not allow his followers to arm themselves 
 even in self-defence. He believed that the best 
 way to overcome the suspicion of the red men was 
 to repose implicit confidence in their honour and 
 humanity. Before he left England he addressed a 
 letter to them, in which he declared that he and 
 they shared a common responsibility to one God, and 
 were alike bound to love, help, and do good to one 
 another. To Colonel Markham, his deputy, he gave
 
 106 PENN AND PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 strict injunctions not to take an inch of ground from 
 the Indians without meeting their just demands. 
 When he himself reached the colony one of his first 
 cares was to assemble the chiefs of the tribes, in order 
 to ratify the bargains which had been made in his name. 
 This conclave was held at Shakamaxon, on the 
 northern edge of Philadelphia. A majestic elm, 
 already one hundred and fifty-five years old, rose in 
 the midst of a sort of natural amphitheatre, which 
 had from time immemorial formed the meeting-place 
 of the tribes, when they lighted the council fire or 
 smoked the calumet of peace. The Indian sachems, 
 men of imposing mien and grave demeanour, decked 
 in their holiday garb, sat upon the ground, in the 
 form of a half-moon the old men being in the front 
 row, and the middle-aged men in a second row at a 
 little distance behind them. The young foresters 
 were grouped in a third -semi-circle in the rear. 
 None of the Indians carried arms, and the oldest of 
 the sachems wore on his forehead the mystic horn 
 which rendered the spot sacred and the persons of 
 all present inviolable. The English also appeared 
 unarmed. They clustered, without distinction of 
 rank, round the old elm, a motley throng of grave 
 English nonconformists, grim old soldiers of Gustavus 
 Adolphus, Dutchmen and Germans. In the centre 
 stood William Penn, undistinguished in attire from 
 his companions except by a silken sash round his 
 waist. He was then in the prime of manhood,
 
 BARTERING WITH THE INDIANS. 107 
 
 " one of the handsomest, best looking, and lively 
 gentlemen," said a lady who was present at this 
 great ceremony. There was nothing of the Quaker 
 in his appearance. Although simple, his dress was 
 handsome, and his long auburn hair fell in rich 
 clusters from beneath his slouched hat. 
 
 When all had taken their places, Penn propounded 
 the treaty of peace and friendship which he desired 
 to form with the Indians: They were each to respect 
 the pursuits and possessions of the other ; and any 
 difference between them was to be settled by a jury, 
 composed of so many men of each race. " We 
 meet," said Penn, " on the broad pathway of good 
 faith and good will : no advantage shall be taken 
 on either side, but all shall be openness and love. 
 I will not call you children, for parents sometimes 
 chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, 
 for brothers differ. We are the same as if one man's 
 body were to be divided into two parts ; we are all 
 one flesh and blood." 
 
 The Indian king responded with grave enthusiasm. 
 " We will live," they said to the English, as they 
 delivered the belt of wampum,* " in love with Mr. 
 Penn and his children as long as the sun and moon 
 shall endure. We will have a broad path for you 
 
 * Wampum, or wampum peag (as it is properly called), was formed from a peculiar 
 kind of shell. Of this substance there were two kiuds, black and white. The black 
 peag consisted of a small round spot on the inside of a shell, which was cut out, 
 polished, and strung on a thread. The wampum peag (white sort) was the twisted 
 end of several small shells broken off from the main part. These were also strung 
 on threads, and worn as bracelets, necklaces, and belts. Belts of wampum wer
 
 108 PENN AND PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 and us to walk in. If an Englishman fall asleep in 
 this path, the Indian shall pass him by, and say, 
 ' He is an Englishman ; he is asleep ; let him alone.' 
 The path shall be plain; there shall not be a stump 
 in it to hurt the feet." 
 
 These words were sincere, and were never for- 
 gotten. The simple sons of the forest, says the 
 historian of America, returning to their wigwams, 
 kept the history of the covenant by strings of wam- 
 pum; and long afterwards in their cabins would count 
 over the shells on a clean piece of bark, and recall 
 to their own memory, and repeat to their children 
 or the stranger, the words of Mr. Penn. It is a 
 remarkable fact that not a drop of Quaker blood 
 was ever shed by the Indians ; and that when, forty 
 years after the death of Penn, an Indian was slain 
 by a Pennsylvanian, the countrymen of the victim 
 begged that his life might be spared. He died, 
 however, soon after, and then they said the Great 
 Spirit was avenged. 
 
 During the whole of his stay in the colony Penn 
 remained on the most affectionate terms with the 
 natives. He visited their camp, learned several of their 
 dialects, walked with them alone in the forest, shared 
 their homely feasts of hominy and roasted acorns, 
 
 often exchanged at the negotiation of treaties, and were on such occasions so 
 contrived as to be a record of the agreement. When used as currency between the 
 English and natives, six of the white, or three of the black beads were valued at an 
 English penny, and a fathom length came to about five shillings. In 1G45 a fine of 
 two thousand fathoms of wampum was imposed by the English on the NiirragansetU 
 at the close of the war, which it took them five years to pay up.
 
 PENN'S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS. 
 
 Page 107.
 
 A PROSPEROUS COLONY. 109 
 
 and even joined in their athletic games. At a leap- 
 ing match one day he entered the ring and distanced 
 all the young men, to their surprise and admiration. 
 
 Of the administration of the colony it is not neces- 
 sary to speak in detail. Its spirit and general 
 character may be gathered from the fact that an 
 appeal to a council of peace-makers was directed to 
 precede any trial in a court of law, and that a court 
 was appointed to take care of widows and orphans. 
 Enlightened as was Penn's policy towards the Indians, 
 he was but little in advance of his contemporaries in 
 his views as to the negroes. He shared the general 
 belief that they were an inferior race, destined to 
 serve the more intellectual nations. But if at first 
 he held their bondage to be justifiable, he exerted 
 himself to raise the moral condition of the slaves, 
 and, towards the close of his life, condemned the 
 whole system. 
 
 Based on such sound principles, and favoured by 
 such a happy inauguration, the colony, as was to be 
 expected, enjoyed a growing and stable prosperity. 
 Very different was the fate of its magnanimous 
 founder. Keturning to England to look after his 
 affairs, the favour which James II. had shown him 
 caused him to be suspected. After the Revolution 
 jealous and interested rivals did their best to blacken 
 his character. He was several times arrested, and 
 each time acquitted. Engrossed with the welfare of 
 humanity, he allowed his estates to be ravaged by a
 
 110 
 
 PENN AND PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 roguish steward, who involved him in difficulties, 
 which he turned to his own profit. Broken in for- 
 tune, he applied to the colonists for a loan of 10,000, 
 but they ungratefully evaded his request. Not 
 content with denying him assistance, they even 
 sought to encroach upon his proprietary rights within 
 the province. On his return to Pennsylvania, how- 
 ever, before the close of the century, a reconciliation 
 was effected between him and his people. The few 
 years which he spent at Pennsbury a manor-house 
 in the old English style, which he built on his 
 colonial domain were the happiest he was destined 
 to enjoy. Recalled to England again by new in- 
 trigues against him at court, his declining years were 
 imbittered by a succession of troubles and disappoint- 
 ments. He died in 1718. 
 
 It does not fall within the scope of this little 
 volume to describe the foundation of each of the 
 American colonies ; but the following extract from 
 one of Mr. Everett's lectures will illustrate the 
 general character of the leading settlements : 
 
 " The first settlement, that of Virginia, was com- 
 menced in the spirit of worldly enterprise, with no 
 slight dash, however, of chivalry and romance on the 
 part of its leader. In the next generation this colony 
 became the favourite resort of the loyal cavaliers and 
 gentlemen who were disgusted by the austerities of 
 the English Commonwealth, or fell under its sus-
 
 THE AMERICAN STATES. Ill 
 
 picion. In the meantime, New England was founded 
 by those who suffered the penalties of nonconformity. 
 The mighty change of 1 640 stopped the tide of 
 emigration to New England, but recruited Virginia 
 with those who were disaffected to Cromwell. In 
 1624 the island of Manhattan was purchased of the 
 Indians for twenty-four dollars; a sum of money, by 
 the way, which seems rather low for 22,000 acres 
 of land, including the site of a great metropolis, but 
 which would, if put out at compound interest at 
 7 per cent in 1624, not perhaps fall so very much 
 below even its present value. Maryland next at- 
 tracted those who adhered to the Roman Catholic 
 faith. New Jersey and Pennsylvania were mainly 
 settled by persecuted Quakers ; but the latter offered 
 an asylum to the Germans whom the sword of Louis 
 XIV. drove from the Palatinate. The French 
 Huguenots, driven out by the revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes, scattered themselves from Massa- 
 chusetts to Carolina. The Dutch and Swedish 
 settlements on the Hudson and the Delaware pro- 
 vided a kindred home for such of their countrymen 
 as desired to try the fortune of the New World. 
 The Whigs of England, who rebelled against James 
 II. in 1685, and were sent to the Transatlantic 
 colonies, lived long enough to meet in exile the 
 adherents of his son, who rebelled against George I. 
 in 1715. The oppressed Protestants of Salzburg 
 came with General Oglethorpe to Georgia ; and the
 
 1J2 PENN AND PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Highlanders who fought for Charles Edward in 
 1745, were deported by hundreds to North Carolina. 
 They were punished by being sent from their bleak 
 hills and sterile moors to a land of abundance and 
 liberty ; they were banished from oatmeal porridge 
 to meat twice a day. The Gaelic language is still 
 spoken by their descendants."
 
 Scottish d^folomj of 
 
 L WILLIAM PATERSON. 
 II. THE FIRST EXPEDITION. 
 IIL THE DISASTERS AT DARIEN.
 
 Cjxe 
 
 lj Colons of garim. 
 
 I. -WILLIAM PATERSON. 
 
 |N the south side of Edinburgh, not far from 
 the new Industrial Museum, might be seen, 
 until recently, an old-fashioned building, 
 whose high-pitched roof, and walls pierced with 
 niches, bore testimony to its former estate. Attached 
 to its weather-stained front was a tablet bearing the 
 date 1698, marking the memorable period in Scottish 
 history when the enterprise represented by those four 
 grim walls was the pride and hope of the nation. 
 For that edifice was the remnant of the old Darien 
 House, the seat of the great Company whose coffers 
 received almost the entire available capital of Scot- 
 land, and was to regenerate the social condition of 
 the country, by developing a wide and lucrative com- 
 merce. We cannot but regret its removal as a 
 memorial of the past, though it belonged to a time 
 when England and Scotland were not united, as they 
 now are, in the bonds of peace and concord. 
 
 It was in 1695 that the scheme for the establish-
 
 116 THE SCOTTISH COLONY OF DABIEN. 
 
 ment of a Scottish colony on the shores of Darien 
 was first published. It was conceived in 1684, 
 by William Paterson, the eminent merchant who 
 designed and helped to found the Bank of England. 
 It is strange that the personal career of a man who, 
 by his connection with such schemes, left so deep an 
 impress on his times, should be shrouded in oblivion ; 
 yet such is the case. He stands before us little 
 more than the shadow of a great name. Of his 
 birth, the date was 1658; and the place somewhere in 
 Dumfries-shire tradition pointing to Tinwald. Hav- 
 ing espoused the cause of the Covenanters, he was 
 obliged at an early age to seek safety by quitting 
 his native country. He spent a number of years in 
 mercantile pursuits in the West Indies. Returning 
 to London, he brought forward his plan for a national 
 bank in 1691, but had to wait several years before 
 it was taken up by the Government. In that insti- 
 tution, when started (1693), he was a shareholder to 
 the extent of 2000, and took his seat among the 
 first Directors. In the course of a year, however, he 
 was quietly elbowed out of the concern. The por- 
 trait of Paterson fully confirms the impression of his 
 character which is created by all we know about 
 him. We look upon a thoughtful, earnest face, 
 kindly in its glance, yet sad withal ; a broad, full 
 forehead ; clear, open eyes ; and firm-set nostrils, 
 which seem somewhat at issue with a chin of weaker 
 mould. The picture, which was found in an old
 
 THE SPANISH MONOPOLY. 117 
 
 volume, bears the inscription, " Sic vos non vobis" 
 which was truly the legend of his life. 
 
 After the establishment of the Bank of England, 
 Paterson continued in business as a merchant ; but 
 the mere pursuit of individual gain was not sufficient 
 to satisfy his aspirations. His mind now recurred to 
 his experiences in the West Indies. 
 
 Of a humane and philanthropic nature, he deplored 
 the lawless lives and horrible excesses of the free- 
 booters ; and with his shrewd eye at once detected 
 the cause of the disorder, and foresaw the only effec- 
 tual remedy. The terrible Brotherhood of the coast 
 sprang from the unnatural exclusiveness of the 
 Spaniards, as directly as filth breeds vermin, and 
 corruption worms. " No peace beyond the line," 
 was the obvious reply to " No faith with heretics," 
 and "No trade with foreigners." The selfish mono- 
 poly which Spain tried to enforce in regard to 
 America was as unjustifiable as it was absurd. Not 
 only the settlement, but the visit of all foreigners 
 was prohibited with more than Japanese severity. 
 No stranger could set foot on any portion of the 
 immense territory claimed by Spain imder penalty 
 of death. Even Spaniards were not allowed to visit 
 their own colonies, except by royal license, and for a 
 brief period. Paterson saw clearly that the only 
 way to get rid of piracy in the Spanish main was to 
 open a channel for legitimate commerce, and to enlist 
 the enterprise and daring of such men as Morgan
 
 118 THE SCOTTISH COLONY OF DARIEN. 
 
 and Dam pier in a peaceful course. A free settlement 
 would secure that object. 
 
 As a site for such a settlement, he fixed upon the 
 Isthmus of Darieii. That narrow neck of land, 
 which links together the two great continents of 
 America, by its very appearance suggests the idea 
 of a communication, across its slender waist, be- 
 tween the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, which would 
 enable vessels not only to escape the furies which 
 guard the routes round Cape Horn and the Cape of 
 Good Hope, but to pass more speedily from the one 
 side of the world to the other. Paterson saw, fur- 
 ther, that a passage from Europe to Asia via Panama 
 would enable vessels to avail themselves of the trade- 
 winds, which would be always in their favour. It 
 is doubtful whether Paterson himself ever visited the 
 Isthmus before he accompanied the colony thither ; 
 but he collected a vast amount of information respect- 
 ing it from Dampier, the buccaneer captain, who 
 had crossed it with his men; Wafer, the surgeon, who 
 had resided for some time among the natives ; and 
 many others who had been on the spot. He learned 
 that, narrow as is the neck of land, the journey from 
 one shore to the other is impeded by forbidding 
 heights, dense forests, tangled brakes, and pestilential 
 swamps ; but he was told, also, that in spite of these 
 obstacles the journey had been accomplished in three 
 days, and that the natives were able to do it in half 
 the time.
 
 A GOLDEN DREAM. 119 
 
 It was not till this scheme had been rejected by 
 the English Government, and one of the German 
 princes, to whom he submitted it, that it occurred to 
 him to propose it to his native country. This idea 
 was encouraged by Fletcher of Saltoun, whom he 
 met in London. Lord Macaulay's eloquent pen does 
 justice to the magnificent speculations of the two 
 friends : " Of the kingdoms of Europe, Scotland 
 was, as yet, the poorest and the least considered. If 
 she would but occupy Darien ; if she would but 
 become one great free port, one great warehouse for 
 the wealth which the soil of Darien might produce, 
 and for the still greater wealth which would be 
 poured into Darien from Canton and Siam, from 
 Ceylon and the Moluccas, from the mouths of the 
 Ganges and the Gulf of Cambay, she would at once 
 take her place in the first rank among nations. No 
 rival would be able to contend with her either in the 
 West Indian or in the East Indian trade. The 
 beggarly country, as it had been insolently called by 
 the inhabitants of warmer and more fruitful regions, 
 would be the great mart for the choicest luxuries, 
 sugar, rum, coffee, chocolate, tobacco, the tea and 
 porcelain of China, the muslin of Dacca, the shawls 
 of Cashmere, the diamonds of Golconda, the pearls ol 
 Karrack, the delicious birds' nests of Nicobar, cin- 
 namon and pepper, ivory and sandal-wood. From 
 Scotland would come all the finest jewels and brocade 
 worn by duchesses at the balls of St. James's and
 
 THE SCOTTISH COLON Y OF DARIEN. 
 
 Versailles. From Scotland would come all the salt- 
 petre which would furnish the means of war to the 
 fleets and armies of contending potentates. And on 
 all the vast riches which would be constantly passing 
 through the little kingdom a toll would be paid, 
 which would remain behind. There would be a 
 prosperity such as might seem fabulous a prosperity 
 of which every Scotchman, from the peer to the 
 cadie, would partake. Soon, all along the now 
 desolate shores of the Forth and Clyde, villas and 
 pleasure-grounds would be as thick as along the edges 
 of the Dutch canals. Edinburgh would vie with 
 London and Paris ; and the bailie of Glasgow or 
 Dundee would have as stately and well-furnished a 
 mansion, and as fine a gallery of pictures, as any 
 burgomaster of Amsterdam." 
 
 II. THE FIRST EXPEDITION. 
 
 It is probable that King William and his ministers 
 never dreamed, when they assented to the Act for 
 establishing what was afterwards known as the 
 Darien Company, that Scotland would be able to 
 carry it out. It would serve, they thought, as a 
 useful stalking horse to divert attention from the 
 Glencoe Massacre, and when that object had been 
 attained it would fall to pieces of its own accord. 
 Those who argued thus little understood the mood 
 in which Scotland took up the scheme. The Scotch
 
 OUTBURST OF SCOTCH ENTHUSIASM. 121 
 
 were tired of barren wars. They were anxious to 
 develop the resources of the country, which had 
 hitherto been wasted by misgovernment and chronic 
 revolution, and to devote to peaceful industry that 
 energy and enterprise which they had displayed on 
 the field and in the foray. Paterson, in proposing the 
 colonization of Darien, only gave a direction and 
 supplied a form to a spirit which already pervaded 
 the nation. Never was the perfervidum ingenium 
 Scotorum thrown so hotly and heartily into any 
 project. The people hastened to enter their names 
 on the subscription list as eagerly as they signed the 
 Solemn League and Covenant ; and carried out the 
 enterprise with all the ardour and enthusiasm with 
 which they had formerly rabbled the English clergy, 
 or braved Cromwell and his Ironsides. 
 
 It was originally intended to raise half of the 
 capital in England, and shares were readily taken 
 there. Some of the southern merchants, however, 
 raised an outcry against the scheme. They declared 
 that the Isthmus belonged to Spain, and that any 
 attempt to land there would lead to a war, of which 
 England would have to bear the brunt. The truth 
 is, that the title of Spain to the Isthmus was worth- 
 less. It was founded on an idle bull of Pope Alex- 
 ander VI., in the sixteenth century, which divided 
 the undiscovered countries of the world between the 
 Spaniards and the Portuguese by a line drawn one 
 hundred leagues west of the Azores, and which had
 
 122 THE SCOTTISH COLONY OF DARIES. 
 
 always been scouted by England, while but little 
 regard had been paid to it oven by Roman Catholic 
 powers. Moreover, the title was not supported by 
 occupation, for of the Spanish stations in that quarter 
 the nearest was more than one hundred miles from 
 Caledonia Bay. 
 
 As to the capacity of the Scots to defend their 
 settlement, without aid from England, against the 
 Spaniards, it was notorious such was the pro- 
 stration and decrepitude of that power at the time 
 that twelve hundred men bred, as most of the 
 colonists were, to arms, could have marched from one 
 end of South America to the other and plundered 
 almost every Spanish station they came to, without 
 meeting any formidable resistance. The real secret 
 of the English opposition was the alarm lest Scotland 
 should gain any share of the English trade. In con- 
 sequence of the clamour which was raised, the Com- 
 pany was forbidden to receive any money in England ; 
 and the King even went so far as to dictate to the 
 merchants of Hamburgh not to support the scheme, 
 an interference which was resented by the Senate of 
 that city, but did not fail to check the subscriptions.* 
 
 Notwithstanding these discouragements, the Darien 
 Company resolved to go on with its preparations. 
 
 * The most conclusive and damnatory proof of the treachery of the English 
 Oovernment towards the Scots' Colony is to be found in the journals of the Board of 
 Trade, which show that at the very time when they were denouncing the Company 
 for invading the rights of Spain, the Board had reported that Spain had no claim 
 to the central district of Darien, that it formed an admirable site for a settlement, 
 and that a body of men should be sent with despatch to aniicipatc the Scots in 
 taking possession of it
 
 THE GOLDEN ISLAND. 123 
 
 Its operations were not confined to the founding 
 of a colony, but included the development of Scottish 
 fisheries and manufactures, and the establishment of 
 trade with Africa and Russia. 
 
 In the summer of 1698 the first expedition to 
 Darien was got ready. It was on a sunny day in 
 July that the first fleet of three vessels, with twelve 
 hundred picked men, sailed from Leith, amidst the 
 cheers of a vast multitude assembled on the beach ; 
 among whom were numbers who were so anxious to 
 
 O ^ 
 
 accompany the expedition that they clung to the 
 sides of the vessels as they were weighing anchor, 
 and were only plucked away by main force. On 
 the 30th October the emigrants came in sight of the 
 New World, and two days afterwards reached Golden 
 Island, which had been named as the destination of 
 the expedition. Their first glimpse of their new 
 home delighted them. Golden Island lay at the 
 entrance of a wide bay, fringed with golden sands, and 
 interspersed with dark mangrove beds. The shores 
 were crowned with groves of stately trees, and backed 
 by a fine range of wooded hills. A narrow strait 
 gave access to the bay, which once entered was safe 
 and commodious. On a peninsula edged with rock, 
 which formed one of the jaws of the harbour, the 
 Scots fixed their fort, cutting through the narrow 
 neck which united it to the mainland, in order to 
 form an island. In this " crabbed hold" they took 
 up their abode. The first day was spent in pitching
 
 124 TUB SCOTTISH COLONY OF DARIEN. 
 
 tents and exploring the locality. The emigrants 
 were pleased with the abundance of game which 
 they started in the woods, and with the shoals of 
 fish which they saw darting about in the crystal 
 waters. The season was peculiarly genial. Palm 
 trees mingled their broad leaves to form thick 
 screens, which offered a pleasant shade ; graceful 
 cocoa-nuts and cassavas waved overhead ; tufts of 
 bamboo were interspersed with heavy trees, whose 
 branches supported gigantic orchids, and whose sterns 
 were concealed amid a mass of purple convolvuli and 
 other brilliant climbers. No time was lost in erecting 
 fortifications, and mounting guns. Rude huts were 
 also built of precious woods, which in Europe form 
 the ornament of palaces. 
 
 Immediately on their arrival the Scots had been 
 visited by a party of natives, with whom the Council 
 had made terms for a settlement. The king of the 
 country lived further inland ; and Paterson and some 
 others went to pay their respects to him. Their 
 first impressions of the fertility of the Isthmus were 
 confirmed by this journey. Maize, bananas, and 
 pine-apples were found in profusion. As they 
 approached the royal court, they were met by a 
 body of musicians playing on reeds, and attended 
 by a crowd of people, who raised a "loud humming" 
 chorus. The king, who wore a diadem of gold, and 
 a light cotton robe, received them graciously, twirling 
 his nose-ring, as " white men sometimes twirl their
 
 DISASTERS COMING. 125 
 
 nmstachios." The priests were asked to disclose 
 the character and designs of the white strangers. 
 As they were engaged in the mysteries of divination, 
 a loud chattering was heard, the branches of the 
 trees became violently agitated, and a large troop of 
 monkeys suddenly appeared upon the scene. They 
 were hailed with delight by the priests, who declared 
 that it was a happy omen. A treaty was there- 
 upon made between the Indians and the Scots, and 
 peace declared " as long as rivers ran, and gold was 
 found in Darien ;" which was the native expression, 
 says the chronicle, for eternity. 
 
 III. THE DISASTERS AT DARIEN. 
 
 In those days colonization was in its infancy ; 
 and Scotland was especially inexperienced in the 
 art. Many blunders were made in fitting out the 
 Darien expedition ; and the settlers were, of course, 
 not exempt from those troubles and dangers which 
 beset every young colony. At all times a draught 
 of the home population to a distant part of the 
 earth must include a large number of restless, un- 
 settled men, who are anxious to exchange the disci- 
 pline of cities for the license of the wilds. Among 
 the Scotch emigrants was a knot of " mean spirits, 
 raw heads, jealous and presumptuous pates," who 
 introduced the leaven of discord into the little com- 
 munity. Unfortunately, the constitution of the
 
 126 THE SCOTTISH COLONY OF DARIKN. 
 
 colony provided no check upon this faction. The 
 Council of Seven, which had been appointed by the 
 Company, distracted by mutual jealousy and distrust, 
 would not elect a president for more than a week ; 
 and each new president, of course, undid the work 
 of his predecessor. The stores with which the Com- 
 pany had loaded the ships were ill-selected, and of infe- 
 rior quality. The provisions were especially bad, and 
 had not been improved by the sea-voyage. A portion 
 of them had to be cast into the sea. The rod and 
 the gun, however, supplied the settlers with fish and 
 game ; and the Indians daily visited the camp with 
 yams, plantains, and cocoa-nuts, which they sold for 
 a handful of beads, or a few trinkets. Although 
 they were still in the "dry" season of the year, the 
 weather had been wet and boisterous, and had some- 
 what retarded the work of clearing and building. 
 Idleness fomented strife. The internal disorder 
 might have proved fatal to the colony, had not a 
 counter-irritant diverted the bad humours and re- 
 stored harmony. 
 
 In the beginning of 1699 rumours reached the 
 ears of the Scots that the Spaniards were mustering 
 a powerful force to oust them from their settlement. 
 There does not appear to have been any foundation 
 for these reports ; but they had the good effect of 
 quelling domestic quarrels, and of leading the various 
 factions, with one consent, to join in hurrying on the 
 fortifications. In March, the Dolphin, a sloop of four-
 
 SPANIARDS AND SCOTS. 127 
 
 teen guns, was wrecked in a storm upon the beach of 
 Carthagena. The crew were seized by the Spaniards, 
 and treated as slaves. When the news of this out- 
 rage reached Fort St. Andrew, an envoy with a flag 
 of truce was at once despatched, to demand the 
 release of the prisoners and indemnity for the insult, 
 under a threat of instant reprisals. The governor of 
 Carthagena received the message in a furious passion, 
 tore up a copy of the Company's charter which had 
 been sent for his inspection, called the Scots 
 " rogues and pirates," and was with difficulty per- 
 suaded to respect the sacred character of the 
 envoy. The Council of Caledonia, in great indig- 
 nation, instantly issued letters of mark and re- 
 prisal. 
 
 Busied with preparations against the Spaniards, 
 the emigrants had no time to grumble over their 
 food, or to quarrel with each other. In spite of the 
 rumoured approach of the enemy, the colony was 
 tranquil and hopeful. And indeed they had, as they 
 knew, but little to fear from that quarter. The 
 Spaniards were notoriously weak, and Fort St. An- 
 drew was impregnable to anus. 
 
 On the 9th April a singular proclamation was 
 issued by the governors of Jamaica, Barbadoes, and 
 New York, in obedience to instructions from Eng- 
 land, repudiating all connection with the Scots, and 
 prohibiting the English colonists, under heavy 
 penalties, from giving them " any assistance in
 
 128 THE SCOTTISH COLON? OF DARIEN. 
 
 arms, ammunition, or any other necessity whatever."* 
 The little band of Scots reeled under the shock of 
 this ruthless proclamation, which amounted to a sen- 
 tence of death by starvation. They might make head 
 against the Spaniards ; they could not cope with 
 the treacherous and implacable foe whom they had 
 found in their own sovereign. In their rocky strong- 
 hold they could withstand any enemy save one, and 
 that was famine, which now stared them in the face. 
 Their stores were well-nigh exhausted, and there was 
 no sign of supplies from Scotland. The vessel they 
 had sent to Jamaica for food had returned empty. 
 For a time " the generous savages, by hunting and 
 fishing for them, gave them that relief which fellow 
 Britons refused ;" but the rainy season, of which they 
 had had but a slight foretaste, now commenced in 
 earnest, and the natives withdrew to the interior. The 
 rain descended in ceaseless torrents. The heat in- 
 creased. The atmosphere became close and suffocating. 
 Swarms of noxious vermin filled the air and covered 
 the ground. From the black, slimy mangrove 
 swamps along the shore the pestilence might be seen 
 steaming up in a dense vapour. With bodies en- 
 feebled by want, and hearts sick with hope deferred, 
 
 * In North America and the West Indies the most savage pirates and buccaneers, 
 men who mieht be termed enemies of the human race, and had done deeds which 
 seemed to exclude them from intercourse with mankind, had, nevertheless, found 
 repeated refuge, had been permitted to refit their squadrons, and supplied with 
 every means of keeping the sea, had set sail in a condition to commit new mur- 
 ders and piracies. But no such relief was extended to the Scots, acting under a 
 charter from their sovereign, and establishing a peaceful colony according to the 
 law of nations, and for the universal benefit of mankind. Sir \Yalter Scott.
 
 THE COLONY ABANDONED. 129 
 
 the emigrants fell an easy prey to the maladies of 
 the season, which, in good health and spirits, they 
 might have resisted. The deaths rose to ten and 
 twelve a day. Those who were equal to the exer- 
 tion dragged their feeble, wasted limbs, to the hill 
 behind the settlement, where they sat, and with 
 wild, blood-shot eyes, scanned the ocean in the hope 
 of seeing it flecked with the white sails of the long 
 expected ship. Paterson strove to cheer up his 
 companions, and besought them to hold on for a 
 little longer, confident that the Company would not 
 abandon them. Every day the cry became stronger 
 find more desperate " Let us flee while yet we 
 have life." Paterson himself had buried his wife, 
 the only woman who accompanied the expedition, 
 and was now stricken by the fever. Eight months 
 had been spent in the Isthmus, and not a word of 
 encouragement, not a morsel of provisions had ar- 
 rived from Scotland. On the 9th of June the 
 emigrants embarked on board of three ships, and 
 set sail for " the first port to which it pleased 
 Providence to send them." Hundreds perished at 
 sea. A storm separated the fleet. Two of the 
 vessels reached New York, and the sight of the 
 miserable skeletons on board moved the authorities 
 to disregard the proclamation, and to allow them 
 to procure food, and to refit their shattered barks. 
 The third vessel arrived at Jamaica, where, but 
 for the secret charity of some private persons, 
 
 (84) 9
 
 130 THE SCOTTISH COLONY OF DABIEN. 
 
 they would have died on the beach from utter 
 want. 
 
 When the tidings of these disasters reached Scot- 
 land, the nation was at first incredulous. When it 
 was found that they were only too true, there was a 
 burst of scorn and indignation at the cowardice of 
 the deserters. There had been a dearth in Scot- 
 land, and the Company, in the belief that the colo- 
 nists had sufficient supplies, had not deemed it 
 necessary to forward more within so short a period. 
 But in May 1699 they despatched a couple of ves- 
 sels with provisions. In August other four vessels, 
 with thirteen hundred men, sailed, amidst the blessings 
 of the nation. These reinforcements arrived at Darien 
 to find the fort in ruins, and the huts a heap of charred 
 embers. The rapid growth of tropical vegetation 
 had overrun the settlement, and almost effaced the 
 traces of the hand of man. " The site marked out 
 for the proud capital, which was to have been the 
 Tyre, the Venice, the Amsterdam of the eighteenth 
 century, was overgrown with jungle, and inhabited 
 only by the sloth and the baboon." No wonder the 
 hearts of the adventurers sank within them. Gra- 
 dually a few of the deserters came back, and another 
 expedition, consisting of three hundred men, under 
 Campbell of Finab a soldier of tried courage and 
 ability reached Darien. But the Scots had no heart 
 to recommence the clearance of the ground, or to 
 rebuild the little town. Self-defence led them to
 
 RE-COLONIZATION ATTEMPTED. 131 
 
 repair the fortifications, but they dwelt chiefly on 
 board of their vessels. Feuds broke out among the 
 idle and disappointed men. An apprehension spread 
 among the weaker and more quiet portion of the 
 band that the others intended to seize them and sell 
 them into slavery in the French and Spanish planta- 
 tions. Provisions were scanty and bad ; and, as if 
 no element of discord should be wanting, the four 
 clergymen who accompanied the expedition estranged 
 the good-will of their flock by holding daily services 
 of three and even six hours in length, and denouncing 
 as children of the Evil One all who showed irritation 
 under that irksome dispensation. 
 
 The Spaniards, encouraged by the policy of Eng- 
 land, were now active in their hostility to the colony. 
 When Campbell of Finab heard a rumour of their 
 approach, he resolved to anticipate them. On the 5th 
 February 1700 he set out, at the head of two hun- 
 dred Scots, to cross the Isthmus. On the third day 
 they descended the mountains towards " the pleasant 
 south sea." The Spaniards were garrisoned at a fort 
 named Tubucanti. Campbell was ignorant of the num- 
 bers of the garrison, but conceived that his duty bade 
 him assail it. The Spaniards fled in alarm at such 
 an intrepid movement, and among the spoils which 
 the Scots carried back in triumph was the golden 
 fleece of the Spanish general. On their return 
 to Caledonia, their exultation over this victory was 
 changed to dismay by the sight of five men- of-
 
 132 THE SCOTTISH COLONY OF DARIEN. 
 
 war blockading the harbour. An open fight was out 
 of the question, but they held out for six weeks. By 
 that time many of the chief men of the expedition 
 were dead. The enemy had cut off the wells, and 
 were every day drawing nearer. All the pewter 
 dishes in the fort had been melted into cannon balls. 
 Inevitable famine compelled the colonists to an hon- 
 ourable surrender ; but they were so few, and feeble 
 from exhaustion, that, but for the assistance of the 
 Spaniards, they could not have weighed the anchor 
 of their vessel. Campbell of Finab refused to be 
 included in the terms of capitulation, but escaped in 
 the night, and returned to Scotland in safety. 
 
 Thus ended the ill-starred attempt of the Scots to 
 plant a colony in Darien. The rage and mortifica- 
 tion of the nation at the overthrow of its magnificent 
 design knew no bounds, and for a time a rebellion 
 against King William, who was regarded as the 
 author of the mischief, appeared inevitable. Paterson, 
 who had conceived the plan of the colony, helped to 
 heal the breach between the two nations by advo- 
 cating the Union, under the terms of which indem- 
 nification was awarded to the Scots for their losses 
 in the Darien expedition. Paterson had lost every- 
 thing in the adventure. He had spent many years 
 and 10,000 in establishing the Company. He had 
 been awarded a handsome per centage on the stock 
 and profits of the undertaking ; but before the first 
 expedition sailed he had generously abandoned his
 
 CAREER OF PATERSOX. 133 
 
 claim. After the Union, a Royal Commission recom- 
 mended that he should receive 18,000, as a return 
 for his services and losses; but it is doubtful whether 
 more than a fragment of the sum was paid to him. 
 He represented Dumfries in the first united Parlia- 
 ment, and was well known at his death as an able 
 financier.
 
 ^Dominion of d 
 
 L CANADA. 
 
 II. RUPERTS LAND AND THE RED RIVER TERRITORY. 
 IIL VANCOUVER'S ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA.
 
 gominbn of Canaba. 
 
 I. CANADA. 
 
 JHE French," justly observes Mr. Everett in 
 one of his essays, " although excelling all 
 other nations in the art of communicat- 
 ing for temporary purposes with savage tribes, seem 
 still more than the Spaniards to be destitute of the 
 august skill required to found new states. Half a 
 million of French peasants in Lower Canada, tena- 
 ciously adhering to the manners and customs which 
 their fathers brought from Normandy two centuries 
 ago, and a third part of that number of planters of 
 French descent in Louisiana, are all that is left to 
 bear witness to the amazing fact, that in the middle 
 of the last century, France was the mistress of the 
 better half of North America." How that vast ter- 
 ritory passed from her grasp, it is no part of our 
 story to tell. Its loss was due partly to the fortunes 
 of war, and partly to her own mismanagement. In 
 17-59, Quebec was captured by General Wolfe, in that 
 memorable siege in which he lost his life ; and Canada 
 was subsequently ceded in full to Great Britain by
 
 138 DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 
 treaty in 1763. At that period the colonial popu- 
 lation was almost exclusively French, and the various 
 settlements were in a frail and languid state. The 
 French lacked not the industry, but the steady per- 
 severance, which was required to subdue the hard, 
 illiberal soil, to a fruitful mood, and the tiresome 
 labour of the axe disheartened them. Comparatively 
 speaking, their clearings and tilled fields were but 
 mere specks on the wide expanse of tangled forest. 
 The seizure of Quebec by arms, however brilliant as 
 a military exploit, was but a step towards the real 
 conquest of Canada. The subjugation of her idle 
 woods and barren wastes is a triumph of which we 
 have still more reason to be proud. During the last 
 quarter of a century the progress of the colony has 
 been rapid and sustained. In 1838, Lord Durham 
 described it as the home of " a widely scattered 
 population, poor, and apparently unenterprising, 
 though hardy and industrious; separated from each 
 other by tracts of intervening forest; without towns 
 and markets, almost without roads; living in mean 
 houses, drawing little more than a rude subsistence 
 from ill-cultivated land, and seemingly incapable of 
 improving their condition." Since then, a great 
 change has come over the spirit of the people and 
 the aspect of the land. Enterprise and energy now 
 characterize the colonists. The forests have receded 
 before the axe, and yellow harvests wave upon their 
 former sites. Squalid Indian villages have given
 
 THE CANADIAN LUMBERER. 139 
 
 place to populous and flourishing towns ; and an 
 extensive railway system embraces the country. 
 
 The soil of Canada is remarkable for its fertility. 
 In some parts it is said to be almost too rich for 
 wheat, while in others it will yield crops of that 
 grain for twenty or thirty years without manuring. 
 In cereal produce, Canada may now be said to be 
 unsurpassed by any country in the world. Her 
 trees, however, form her especial glory. Enormous 
 forests of maple, beech, oak, basswood, ash, elm, hick- 
 ory, walnut, chestnut, cherry, birch, cedar, and pine, 
 stretch far and wide over the country, and supply a 
 precious mine of wealth. Some of these trees assume 
 gigantic proportions. The white spruce attains a 
 height of 14*0 feet, and the Weymouth pine, 200 
 feet. One of the latter has been known to exhibit 
 1500 annular divisions in its stem, thus proving it 
 to be of great antiquity. A Scotch backwoodsman, 
 Mr. Linton, counted the rings of an oak between 
 Lake Huron and the head of Lake Ontario, and cal- 
 culated that it had been a sapling in the days of 
 Wallace and Bruce. 
 
 The "lumberer" has been the pioneer of Cana- 
 dian colonization. Encamping in the heart of the 
 forest, the " lumberer " plies the axe during the 
 summer and autumn. Before the winter arrives, 
 many a tall tree has been laid low in the dust. 
 The frozen snow offers a smooth, firm pathway, 
 over which horses drag the felled logs to the brink
 
 140 DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 
 of the nearest stream. When the thaw comes, 
 they are floated down into some navigable river, 
 where they are made up into rafts, and steered, 
 perhaps for hundreds of miles, to Quebec. The 
 piloting of these huge rafts down the numerous 
 rapids which they have to traverse demands a quick 
 eye and strong nerve, and is not free from peril. 
 The rafts consist of several portions called " bonds," 
 each of which is subdivided into " cribs." When a 
 cataract has to be descended, the whole " bond " goes 
 down together ; but when a " shoot" has been pro- 
 vided, in order to avoid a dangerous or impassable 
 fall, each crib traverses it separately, and rejoins its 
 associates below. Mr. Woods, in describing the 
 "shoot," or canal on a slope, which the Prince of 
 Wales descended with the Governor-General and the 
 Duke of Newcastle, says : " A certain portion of 
 the river is dammed off, and turned into a broad 
 wide channel of timber, which is taken at a sharp in- 
 cline cut into the bank of the river, and down which, 
 of course, the waters of the Ottawa rush at terrific 
 speed. The head of this 'shoot' is placed some 300 
 or 400 yards above the falls, and terminates, after a 
 run of abo\it three-quarters of a mile, in the still 
 waters of the river below their base. But a raft on 
 such a steep incline, and hurried along by such a rush 
 of water, would attain a speed which would destroy 
 itself and all upon it. The fall of the shoot is broken 
 at intervals by straight runs, along which it glides
 
 A LOGGING BEE. i41 
 
 at a comparatively reduced speed, till it again dashes 
 over the next incline, and commences another head- 
 long rush. Some of these runs terminate with a 
 perpendicular drop of three or four feet, over which 
 the raft goes smack, and wallows in the boiling water 
 beneath, till the current again gets the mastery, and 
 forces it on faster and more furiously than before. 
 More than 20,000,000 cubic feet of timber come 
 down the shoots of the Ottawa in this manner each 
 year." During the journey, the lumberers, in their 
 red jerseys, seated on their piles of yellow logs, 
 form a picturesque sight. 
 
 The plough follows the axe. In the track of the 
 lumberer comes the backwoods farmer. He finds 
 the ground partially cleared, but by no means bare 
 of trees ; so he sets to work to complete the task. 
 After felling the remaining trunks, and rooting up 
 the stumps over an acre or so, he assembles his 
 friends to what is called a "logging bee/' In the 
 backwoods, when labour is scarce, it is the fashion 
 for settlers to give each other a day's work occa- 
 sionally. From far and near, at daybreak, flock the 
 neighbours, with their teams of stout oxen and strong 
 iron chains, with which they drag away the felled 
 trees. These are then piled in heaps and burned. 
 A homely but hearty feast closes the day of kindly 
 labour. Before long, fields are enclosed and culti- 
 vated, and there are harvests to reap. Roads hither- 
 to have been mere accidents. A broad thoroughfare
 
 142 DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 
 would gradually narrow into a mere squirrel track, 
 and finally, as the Yankees say, run up a tree. But 
 with the increase of farms, and the growth of crops, 
 regular highways become a necessity, and are accord- 
 ingly constructed. In the course of time, houses 
 spring up by the side of the most frequented roads, 
 hamlets rise into villages, and villages swell into towns. 
 
 According to an official return issued a few years 
 ago, Canada proper contains 350,000 square miles, 
 of which only some 40,000 were then cleared. The 
 large portion of this area, however, which lies to the 
 north of the St. Lawrence, on the Labrador coast, 
 does not offer a tempting prospect to the colonist. It 
 is anticipated that before many years elapse, the whole 
 of Western Canada will be settled, and that coloni- 
 zation will then tend in a north-easterly direction. 
 
 The two Canadas now comprise a population which 
 is not far short of 3,000,000, or about as large as 
 that of the thirteen States of America which in the last 
 century withdrew their allegiance from Great Britain. 
 The importance of the colony may be gathered from 
 the fact, that its imports amount to about 8,000,000, 
 and its exports to nearly 7,000,000. A vast system 
 of inland navigation the grandest in the world- 
 extends from the ocean to the prairies of the Far 
 West, through Canadian rivers, lakes, and canals. 
 Immediate and direct water communication is thus 
 afforded between the very heart of the country and 
 its seaboard, embracing 2000 miles of inland coast,
 
 PROSPERITY OF T11E DOMINION. 143 
 
 without referring to the nearly equal extent of coast 
 belonging to the States, or the vast affluents which 
 feed the St. Lawrence and the lakes. In not a few 
 cases a vessel, built and loaded with a cargo in the 
 backwoods, has traversed this great artery of com- 
 merce, has crossed the ocean, and, reaching England, 
 has found a purchaser both for itself and its contents. 
 In addition to this inland navigation, Canada has a 
 magnificent railway system greater, in proportion to 
 population, than any other country in the world; and 
 will almost immediately commence the construction 
 of a Great Trunk Railway, to connect the mouth of 
 the St. Lawrence with the harbour of Victoria in 
 British Columbia. It constitutes, it has been justly 
 said, " no Elysium of pleasure, no Utopia of wealth, 
 but a country in which an industrious emigrant may 
 form for himself a happy home, and enjoy the greatest 
 of human blessings independence and health ; and 
 to these advantages are added political freedom for 
 himself, free education for his children, a pure ad- 
 ministration of justice, and a fair prospect of afflu- 
 ence as the reward of industry and economy." The 
 appropriate motto of the capital is, " Industry, Intelli- 
 gence, and Integrity;" and her emblem is the beaver. 
 The neighbouring states of Nova Scotia, New 
 Brunswick, and Prince Edward's Island, which to- 
 gether possess a total population of 650,000, are not 
 equally prosperous ; but much may be hoped from 
 their confederation with Canada under the general 
 title of the " Dominion of Canada."
 
 144 DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 
 ii. RUPERT'S LAND AND THE RED RIVER TERRITORY. 
 
 Canada, and the confederated provinces of New 
 Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward's Island, 
 although at present the most important portion of 
 British North America, form but a comparatively small 
 slice of that extensive region which, stretching from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific, and touching the United 
 States at the great lakes in the 49th parallel, is limited 
 to the north only by the Frozen Ocean. A large but 
 rather indefinite section of the British territory north 
 of Canada is known as Rupert's Land, and was for- 
 merly the hunting-ground of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany. "Imagine," says Mr. R. M. Ballantyne, "an im- 
 mense extent of country, many hundred miles broad, 
 and many hundred miles long, covered with dense 
 forests, expanded lakes, broad rivers, and mighty 
 mountains, and all in a state of primeval simplicity, 
 undefaced by the axe of the civilized man, and un- 
 tenanted, save by a few roving hordes of Red Indians, 
 and myriads of wild animals. Picture amid this 
 wilderness a number of small squares, each enclosing 
 about half-a-dozen wooden houses, and about a dozen 
 men, and between each of these establishments a 
 space of forest, varying from fifty to three hundred 
 miles in length, and you will have a pretty correct idea 
 of the Hudson's Bay territories. The idea, however, 
 may be still more correctly obtained by imagining 
 populous Great Britain converted into a wilderness.
 
 THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY. 145 
 
 and planted in the middle of Rupert's Land. The 
 Company, in that case, would build three forts in it 
 one at Land's End, one in Wales, and one in the 
 Highlands ; so that in Britain there would be but three 
 hamlets, with a population of some thirty men, half-a- 
 dozen women, and a few children. The Company's 
 posts extend, with these intervals, from the Atlantic 
 to the Pacific Ocean, and from within the Arctic 
 Circle to the northern boundaries of the United States." 
 Exclusive of flying posts, the Company had in all 
 one hundred and sixty-four regular establishments. 
 Some idea of the extensive character of its operations 
 may be derived from the fact that about thirty thou- 
 sand buffaloes were annually slain on its ground, to say 
 nothing of elks, martens, and other animals. The pro- 
 prietary system under which the Company held this 
 vast territory, by a charter of Charles II., confirmed by 
 subsequent Acts of Parliam ent, was naturally repugnant 
 to modern views. So great a monopoly, and such un- 
 controlled power, cannot be exercised by any body of 
 private traders without grave abuses. The Hudson's 
 Bay Company was accused, even by some of its own 
 servants, of very cruel and despotic behaviour. It 
 was said that the Indians were cheated when dispos- 
 ing of their furs; that exorbitant prices were exacted 
 from them for the arms and ammunition without 
 which they could not earn their living; and that they 
 were systematically reduced to a state of helpless and 
 miserable dependence on the officials of the Company. 
 
 (84) 10
 
 l4t) DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 
 It was added that an expert trapper might take the 
 life of an Indian with impunity ; and that the sub- 
 ordinate officials were in the habit of shooting or 
 hanging natives, after a mockery of a trial, on the 
 mere suspicion of wrong-doing. Many of these 
 stories, of course, related to a remote period, and 
 were probably exaggerated. But it was undeniable 
 that the Company persisted in supplying rum in un- 
 limited quantities to the Indians, although no spirits 
 are allowed to be sold to them in the States ; that 
 it exerted itself to the utmost of its power to en- 
 shroud its territories in a veil of mystery; and that, 
 instead of promoting, it obstructed exploration. It 
 endeavoured to convey an idea that its domain was 
 a desolate and inhospitable land, in which only rude, 
 hardy trappers could endure to reside, and that it 
 was fitted for nothing save a great game preserve. 
 It is perfectly true that a large portion of the 
 territory is a desert, in which winter reigns with 
 Arctic severity; but it also comprises large tracts 
 of valuable timber, prairies capable of supporting 
 numerous flocks and herds, and soil adapted for 
 cultivation. 
 
 Except recently at Vancouver's Island, the Red 
 River was the only point at which the Company per- 
 mitted colonization to be carried on. In 1811, the 
 Earl of Selkirk transported thither a body of High- 
 landers; not so much, it is suspected, with the view 
 of peopling the country as of placing an obstacle in the
 
 TIIK YOUNGER COLONIES. 147 
 
 way of a rival company of fur-traders. In spite of 
 the early troubles with which it had to contend, 
 in repeated visitations of grasshoppers, inundations 
 from the swollen river, the difficulty of procuring 
 stock and implements, and the want of a market, 
 the little settlement has taken firm root. It now 
 comprises a thriving British community of whites 
 and half-breeds, numbering about six thousand five 
 hundred souls, and separated from the nearest point 
 of civilization by four hundred miles of wilderness. 
 For forty miles along the river there is a straggling 
 chain of small farming establishments, interspersed 
 with churches and windmills. The soil is very rich, 
 and yields heavy crops of grain. Bleating flocks 
 and lowing herds cover the pastures. A happy 
 future may be expected for the whole territory now 
 that it is associated with other provinces in the 
 Dominion of Canada. 
 
 in. VANCOUVER'S ISLAND AND BRITISH COLUMBIA. 
 
 Although formerly two distinct colonies, Vancouver's 
 Island and British Columbia were often spoken of as 
 an united settlement, and the expectation has, of late 
 years, been fulfilled. Vancouver's Island is the elder. 
 Established in 1849, under the auspices of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, in fulfilment of a condition 
 attached by the Government to the renewal of their 
 charter, the colony had at first but a feeble exist- 
 ence, and but for the magnetic attraction of the gold-
 
 148 DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 
 fields on the other side of the Georgia Channel, it 
 would have remained in the same undeveloped state, 
 if it had not died out altogether. Viewed from sea- 
 ward, the island presents rather an unprepossessing 
 appearance. Dark frowning cliffs girdle its shores ; 
 beyond these, with scarcely any interval of level 
 land, rounded hills, densely covered with fir, rise one 
 above the other ; and over these, again, appear bare, 
 rugged mountains, with peaks jagged like the edge 
 of a saw. The whole centre of the island, as far as 
 it has been explored, is said to be a mass of rock and 
 mountain. Although there is not much open land, 
 it is exceedingly fertile. Victoria, the capital, is 
 situated on undulating ground overlooking the bay. 
 Four years ago it was a mere trading port of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, and contained about 250 
 people. Its population has now risen to between 
 6000 and 7000. Broad streets of substantial wooden 
 houses have been erected. A few brick stores, a 
 handsome stone bank, the spires of four churches, 
 one or two Government buildings, and the high, 
 spiked walls of a jail, distinguish the place from a 
 mere log-town, and indicate its pretensions to be 
 regarded as a capital.* Suburbs, shaded with oak 
 trees like an English park, and rich agricultural land, 
 surround the town. Although there is a harbour at 
 
 * In Victoria there are pas-works, an iron foundry, machine shops, a public 
 library and reading-room, two newspapers, two fire companies, a St Andrew'i 
 Society, a Freemasons' Lodge, a Horticultural Society, a Philharmonic Society, a 
 gymnasium, bowling-alley, a jockey club, theatre, ic.
 
 A PICTURESQUE COUNTRY. 149 
 
 Victoria, it is not so good as that at Esquimoult, 
 which is beginning to rise into notice. Half a dozen 
 houses, three or four grog shops, and one or two 
 stores, represent at present the "town" of Esqui- 
 moult. Vancouver's Island is rich in coal, which is 
 of great value in that part of the world, California 
 being deficient in that important mineral. The 
 population of Vancouver's Island (which is equal in 
 size to the half of Ireland) is estimated as follows : 
 G700 whites (of whom 700 are women), 500 coloured 
 people, and 15,000 Indians. 
 
 Sailing through the Strait of St. Juan de Fuca, on 
 his right the traveller beholds the snow-capped moun- 
 tains of Washington territory; to the left lies Van- 
 couver's Island, low in comparison with the opposite 
 shore, but still possessing heights on which, even in 
 June, patches of snow glisten. The glassy waters of 
 the Gulf of Georgia present a striking appearance, 
 dotted with many little islands, and enlivened by 
 swiftly-gliding canoes, filled with painted Indians, 
 slow-paced sailing ships, and spluttering steamers. 
 On the side of the gulf, opposite to Vancouver's Is- 
 land, loom the dark shores of British Columbia. At 
 first sight, the whole country appears to be clothed 
 with forest ; but when the traveller moves inland, 
 he learns that, in the lowlands, the pines frequently 
 take the form of belts, enclosing rich valleys and 
 open prairies ; lawns, in which oaks and maples, 
 not pines, predominate ; marshes, covered with long,
 
 150 DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 
 coarse grass ; and lakes, fringed with flowering 
 shrubs, willows, and poplars.* " The impressions 
 which this country leaves on the mind," says Mr. 
 Macdonald, C.E., "are of grandeur, gloomy vast- 
 ness, awful solitude, rendered more dismal by the 
 howl of beasts of prey. Streams, white with foam, 
 flow amid cliffs and ravines, forming at places mag- 
 nificent waterfalls, whose lonely thunder swells and 
 dies away in the interminable solitude of unpeopled 
 space. Tremendous precipices, yawning gulfs, and 
 towering rocks, whose naked backs have withstood 
 the storms of six thousand years, are all there to 
 astonish and rivet the attention. Forests of the 
 deepest green present to the eye vast masses of foli- 
 age, fresh and glittering in the sunlight ; whilst, far 
 above, overhanging cliffs and mountains, gleam 
 piles and pyramids of snow, and ice, and glacier 
 gorges, of remarkable splendour. The surface of the 
 country is generally rocky, except where covered with 
 forest trees and underwood." The deer, the elk, the 
 bear, the puma, and the wolf, people the fastnesses 
 of the forest ; and there are vast well-stocked covers 
 of grouse, partridges, and various kinds of wild-fowl. 
 Fish swarm along the shores, and in the numerous 
 lakes which stud the country. The salmon is espe- 
 cially abundant. The Indian, by a few hauls of the 
 net, fills his canoe with them. The bear sits by the 
 side of the river, and paws them out for breakfast, 
 
 * " Facts and Figures," by Mr Despard Pemberton.
 
 NEW WESTMINSTER. 151 
 
 dinner, and supper. The Hudson's Bay Company 
 salts annually about two thousand barrels of salmon. 
 There is a great diversity of climate, both in British 
 Columbia and Vancouver's Island. The white fox 
 and the humming-bird, the reindeer's lichen and the 
 cactus, may be found within the limits of one terri 
 tory. Generally speaking, the climate of the sea- 
 coast is milder and finer than that of England, but 
 wet in winter. In the interior the winters are drier 
 and colder, while the summers are hotter. 
 
 New Westminster, the capital of British Columbia, 
 stands on the bank of the Fraser Biver, about fifteen 
 miles from its mouth. It has only 300 inhabitants, 
 but it boasts a church, school, custom-house, jail, 
 barracks, treasury, mint, and assay office. One or two 
 Indian villages in the gold regions are beginning to be 
 transformed into white settlements. With an area 
 about three and a half times as large as Great Britain, 
 British Columbia has a population of 20,000 whites 
 (of which a comparatively small number are women), 
 2000 Chinamen, and from 10,000 to 15,000 Indians. 
 The aborigines have generally shown themselves 
 friendly ; but the outrages which some of the ruffians, 
 attracted by the gold diggings, have perpetrated, 
 have naturally provoked reprisals. 
 
 At present British Columbia is living on its gold- 
 fields. The chief fields are situated in the newly 
 discovered district of Cariboo (a corruption from 
 Cerf-bceuf, a large species of reindeer which inhabits
 
 152 DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 
 the country), near the sources of Fraser River. This 
 district is described as a 
 
 " Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, 
 Land of the mountain and the flood ; " 
 
 for it is a rugged mass of hills and streams, in the 
 lower parts swampy and heavily timbered with ex- 
 tensive forests, and covered with a dense brushwood 
 in the higher latitudes. The only level ground is 
 found on the tops of the mountains, which are all 
 flat. Ravines abound, along the sides of which 
 run what the miners call " benches," or terraces, 
 which resemble the well-known parallel roads of 
 Glen Roy in Scotland. These benches, as far as 
 they have been tested, have yielded gold. The only 
 portion of the district that has been explored is a 
 patch of country fifty miles from north to south, and 
 thirty miles from east to west. It bears a striking re- 
 semblance to the richest regions of California, and 
 exhibits all the characteristics of an auriferous coun - 
 try. As far as " prospecting" has yet gone, this 
 character has been fully established. The country 
 exhibits the marks of strong volcanic action, and 
 veins and boulders of quartz (gold matrix) are seen 
 in every direction in the hills. These, however, have 
 been hitherto neglected by the most of the "diggers" 
 for the placeres, on account of the latter being much 
 more easily worked. " There is an efflorescence of 
 gold," says one writer, "near the surface in the 
 virgin soil of most gold-bearing countries; but I never
 
 GOLD IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. 153 
 
 knew it so general as it is in British Columbia. The 
 gold is found a few inches, a foot or two, and very 
 seldom more than six feet, below the surface. The 
 gold is all coarse gold, granulated, gravelly stuff, mixed 
 with pellets and pebbles of pure metal of considerable 
 size." When the diggings were first commenced, 
 the snow lay deep on the ground, and the imple- 
 ments of the miners were of the rudest kind. Not- 
 withstanding these drawbacks, they took out as much 
 as from 50 to 400 dollars a day; results which were 
 largely increased as soon as the weather improved, 
 and "flumes" were constructed to economize manual 
 labour, and enable them to discard the slow and 
 wearisome " cradle." By the end of last year, the 
 deposits were found to be not only rich, but exten- 
 sive, and "tunnelling" was resorted to in the sides 
 of the hills. The prizes which some of the miners 
 have made appear marvellous. For instance, in two 
 months five men obtained 20,000 worth of gold. 
 The total yield of gold over the whole country for 
 1861 gave 6,791,409 dollars, as the earnings of 
 5000 miners. Allowance must be made, however, 
 for the necessarily high prices of provisions. A meal 
 of beans and bacon with a cup of wretched coffee 
 cost 8s. 4d. ; and 2s. per square inch was charged for 
 water for sluicing. At the diggings the cost of living 
 was about 12, 10s. a day. Mr. Macdonald therefore 
 calculates that, regarded as a whole, the mining was 
 a losing game, since the expenditure for food, appu-
 
 154 DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 
 ratus, &c., in 1861, exceeded the return of gold by 
 42,614,836 dollars. If fortunes were gained, for- 
 tunes must also have been lost at Cariboo. 
 
 Another gold region has lately been discovered to 
 the north of the northern limits of British Colum 
 bia, in the Indian land, known as the Stickeen 
 country. This district is of vast extent, and belongs 
 to Great Britain, with the exception of a strip or 
 belt on the Pacific, which was ceded to Russia in 
 1825. Several hundred miners are now at work 
 along the banks of the Stickeen River. 
 
 The chief value of British Columbia lies in the 
 fact that it will ere long be traversed by a great 
 highway leading from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
 We may look forward, moreover, to its speedy 
 annexation to the Canadian Dominion, which cannot 
 fail to stimulate its prosperity.
 
 dTmtttncnt 
 
 I. BOTANY BAY. 
 II. THE AUSTRALIAN PASTURES 
 IIL THE GOLD DIGGINGS. 
 IV. THE AUSTRALIAN INTERIOR.
 
 ustraliatt Continent. 
 
 I. BOTANY BAY. 
 
 |HE term, " our Antipodes/' as applied to 
 Australia, is justified not merely by its 
 position on the globe, but by the many 
 contrasts which it offers to the mother country. " It 
 is in New Holland," says one shrewd observer, 
 " where it is summer when it is winter in Europe, 
 and vice versa ; where the barometer rises before 
 bad weather, and falls before good ; where the north 
 is the hot wind, and the south the cold ; where the 
 humblest house is fitted up with cedar; where the 
 fields are fenced with mahogany, and myrtle-trees 
 are burned for fuel; where the swans are black and 
 the eagles are white ; where the kangaroo, an animal 
 between the squirrel and the deer, has five claws on 
 its fore paws and three talons on its hind legs, like a 
 bird, and yet hops on its tail; where the mole lays 
 eggs and has a duck's bill; where there is a bird 
 with a broom in its mouth instead of a tongue; 
 where the pears are made of wood, with the stalk at 
 the broader end; and where the cherry grows with
 
 158 THK AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 the stone on the outside." " Truly a strange land," 
 adds another writer, " where pigs are fattened on 
 peaches, and hundreds of thousands of fat sheep and 
 oxen are annually boiled down for the sake of their 
 tallow, to the waste of untold quantities of excellent 
 beef and mutton." It is a proof of the robust 
 vitality of our national character, that, notwithstand- 
 ing these and many other differences between England 
 and Australia, our great colony should bear so truly 
 English a character. English plants and animals 
 are affectionately cherished, English manners and 
 customs are retained, and the appearance of English 
 towns is carefully imitated. 
 
 By which nation Australia was discovered is a 
 matter of doubt. The preponderance of land on the 
 north side of the globe, as portrayed in the maps of 
 the sixteenth century, suggested to many minds the 
 existence of a great continent in the south ; and 
 Spanish and Portuguese navigators, adopting this 
 theory, reported the discovery of a " great south land," 
 which some of them connected with Java, and others 
 with America. Whether any of them really came 
 upon a part of Australia, or whether they mistook 
 detached islands for portions of the mainland, there 
 is no direct testimony to show. A chart has lately 
 been discovered, in the British Museum, which is 
 said to prove that the first discovery of Australia 
 was made in 1601, by Manuel di Eredia. In the 
 no.rrative of Captain Flinders mention is made of
 
 EARLY EXPLORATIONS OF AUSTRALIA. 159 
 
 charts in the same repository dating as far back as 
 1542, in which the north and north-west coasts of 
 Australia are pretty accurately laid down under 
 the name of Great Java, It is at least certain 
 that the Dutch visited Australia in the seventeenth 
 century. Between 1606 and 1636, various search- 
 ing expeditions sailed from Holland, and succeeded, 
 although without always knowing it, in touching 
 various points on the continental coast. The re- 
 sults of these voyages were at the time reckoned of 
 little worth: all that was found was, according to 
 one chronicler, " everywhere shallow water and barren 
 coasts, and islands thinly peopled by divers cruel, 
 poor, and brutal nations." Tasman was more suc- 
 cessful. In 1642 he circumnavigated the whole of 
 Australia, but without visiting any part of it, during 
 the voyage in which he discovered Van Diemen's 
 Land and New Zealand. Two years later he is sup- 
 posed to have sailed round the Gulf of Carpentaria. 
 The subsequent expeditions of the Dutch added but 
 little to our knowledge of Australia, which to all prac- 
 tical intents and purposes remained unexplored till the 
 English turned their attention to the matter. Dam- 
 
 o 
 
 pier twice visited it, the first time when on his 
 celebrated buccaneering voyage round the world, and 
 afterwards when more legitimately engaged as the 
 commander of a royal exploring expedition. He 
 found shoals of sharks along the coast, and on shore 
 a number of the " most unpleasant-looking and worst
 
 160 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 featured of any people "he had ever seen. Nearly 
 seventy years after Dampier, Captain Cook passed 
 that way in the Endeavour, and explored the 
 whole east coast of Australia, from Cape Howe to 
 Cape York. Striking the continent in the south, 
 and proceeding northwards, he entered an inlet on 
 which he conferred the name of Botany Bay, from 
 the great variety of new plants which were there dis- 
 covered. A few inhabitants were espied, but these 
 were so shy and suspicious, that they could not be 
 induced to approach the strangers. Resuming his 
 voyage, Cook found the country growing more hilly, 
 and the navigation of the coast more dangerous 
 and intricate. One night the ship struck on a coral 
 reef and was well-nigh lost. Fortunately, however, 
 the rock had itself repaired the leak which it had 
 caused, by leaving a large piece of coral to stop up 
 the aperture in the timbers of the ship ! Accordingly, 
 when the vessel again floated, the leakage did not 
 increase. The navigators took shelter in an adjoin- 
 ing cove, where they encamped for a short time. 
 Here the natives appeared somewhat more familiar, 
 but afforded them no assistance. Indeed the poor 
 creatures were, perhaps, more in want of food than 
 the crew ; and when refused a share of the turtle 
 which the sailors had procured, in revenge, fired the 
 long grass which grew round the tents. When the 
 ship was again fit for sea, Cook resumed the perilous 
 navigation of the coral-reefs, and discovered the
 
 A CONTINENT FOR CONVICTS. IGl 
 
 channel which separates Australia from New Guinea. 
 Landing on a little island, to which he gave the 
 appropriate name of Possession, he took possession, in 
 the name of King George, of the immense line of 
 coast which he had surveyed. In this expedition 
 Cook " reaped the harvest of discovery ; but the 
 gleanings of the field remained to be gathered" Bass, 
 Flinders, and Grant proved themselves fully capable 
 of continuing the work which Cook had inaugurated, 
 and within fifty years after the English entered on 
 the work of exploration, they had surveyed the 
 outline of the continent, with the exception of a 
 small gap bet.we.en Flinders' and Grant's Lands. 
 
 The first use of this noble continent was as a jail. 
 The exile and enslavement of prisoners are practices 
 of ancient date. When colonization began, the trans- 
 portation of convicts to a distant settlement satisfied 
 at once the desire of the government to relieve the 
 mother country from troublesome subjects, and to 
 turn their services to profitable account. Almost 
 from the first establishment of the English colonies, 
 large numbers of prisoners were handed over to court 
 favourites, who sold them into bondage in the " plan- 
 tations." This ingenious method of punishing the un- 
 ruly and disaffected, and at the same time rewarding 
 the adherents of the government, was highly approved 
 by King James II. Monmouth's rash rebellion 
 afforded a pretext for the banishment in this way 
 of a great many unfortunate persons. After the 
 
 (84) 11
 
 162 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 rupture with the American colonies in 1776, and the 
 failure of the penal settlements on the west coast of 
 Africa, the English government was at a loss how to 
 dispose of the criminal population. The prisons 
 were frightfully overcrowded, and it was necessary 
 that some new convict stations should be found. 
 In its perplexity, the government recollected the 
 favourable accounts given of the two thousand miles 
 of coast at the other end of the world, upon which 
 Captain Cook had bestowed the name of New South 
 Wales, and of which he had taken possession in the 
 name of his sovereign. It was determined to de- 
 spatch a body of convicts, to lay the foundation of a 
 colony in that country. 
 
 In 1787, a fleet of eleven sail conveyed to Botany 
 Bay 600 male and 250 female convicts, with a guard 
 of marines. No sooner had they arrived, than Cap- 
 tain Phillip, who commanded the expedition, at once 
 pronounced the place unsuitable, the anchorage being 
 unsafe, and the land sterile and inhospitable. Cruising 
 about in search of a better situation, he found, a few 
 miles further north, a narrow opening in the preci- 
 pitous, iron-bound coast. Passing up this inlet, he 
 unexpectedly entered a vast land-locked lake, which 
 at a glance was seen to be one of the finest harbours 
 in the world. The day was calm and bright, and 
 as the strangers sailed along, they observed with 
 delight the magnificent groves which crowned the 
 shores, and the beautiful islets dotting the expanse
 
 LANDING AT SYDNEY COVE. 163 
 
 of waters. The fleet was immediately brought round 
 to this inviting spot. On the 26th January 1788, 
 the British flag was hoisted at Sydney Cove, a small 
 inlet on the south side of the Bay, where the troops 
 and convicts disembarked. The entire company num- 
 bered 1080. Distress and privation beset them 
 almost from their first landing. In despatching the 
 expedition, there had been no attempt at selection 
 or organization. There were not half a dozen men 
 among them who knew how to use a carpenter's 
 tools, and there was only one bricklayer. Not a 
 mechanic could be found capable of erecting an 
 ordinary corn-mill. The building of houses, there- 
 fore, proceeded slowly. The officers and marines 
 enjoyed the luxury of tents; but many of the con- 
 victs had to be thankful for the shelter of a cave 
 among the rocks, or the hollow of an old tree. 
 Promising as the shores of the bay looked on the 
 sunny day when the English first beheld them, they 
 soon learned that the soil was sandy and barren, and 
 that every yard required for cultivation must be won 
 from the forest, by cutting down trees so hard that 
 they turned the edges of the best axes, and almost 
 baffled the efforts of the most skilled wood-cutters. 
 No game was to be found, except an occasional emu 
 or stray kangaroo. It was impossible, therefore, 
 that they could support themselves. The rations 
 which they brought with them were soon consumed. 
 Confined on a narrow strip of desert shore, with the
 
 164 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 grim and rugged heights of the Blue Mountains on 
 one side, and the boundless ocean on the other, 
 famine appeared inevitable. Before they had been 
 a year at Sydney, there were not four months' 
 provisions in the settlement, even at half-allowance. 
 The government store-ship was wrecked on its way 
 out to the colony; but, fortunately, its cargo was 
 saved, and forwarded to the relief of our starving 
 countrymen. 
 
 Without waiting to learn how the settlement had 
 thriven, the government despatched thither ship after 
 ship, laden with prisoners of all degrees of crime. 
 The simple country lad, who had snared a hare or 
 knocked over a pheasant, and had had, perhaps, a 
 scuffle with the squire's keepers, was coupled with the 
 hardened ruffian who had spent a life of crime. Cor- 
 rupted by such companionship, and goaded by want 
 and tyranny, the least guilty, before long, became as 
 bad as the worst. Sometimes half of a ship load of 
 the poor wretches would perish on the voyage, and 
 those who survived would scarcely be able to crawl 
 upon deck and jump into the boats when the vessel 
 came to anchor in Sydney Cove. Once on shore, 
 their misery did not cease, but assumed merely a 
 new, and perhaps a more aggravated form. There 
 was no limit to the despotism of the military officers. 
 The governor had absolute power in the settlement, 
 could set a convict at liberty, cut his back into 
 raw flesh with the lash, or hang him up to the
 
 TERRIBLE RECORDS. 1G5 
 
 nearest tree at a moment's notice. The officers were 
 also tyrants in their degree. No regular overseers 
 were sent out from England. The biggest and 
 strongest convicts were selected for the task, and 
 they were generally the most brutal. A prisoner 
 who was useful to the officers could do almost any- 
 thing with impunity; but any one who did not 
 possess that qualification was, for the most trifling 
 offence, flogged or hanged without mercy. The 
 women were not dealt with more leniently than the 
 men. " The women who misbehaved," says one of 
 those who early arrived in the colony, " were put in 
 iron-spiked collars. Six hundred died out of eight 
 hundred at Toongabbie/' Years passed before there 
 was a church in the colony. As the convicts were 
 assembled for service under a broiling sun or pelting 
 rain, it was no wonder that they regarded it as a 
 penance rather than a rite. Food was always scarce. 
 " I have often," said one of the convicts, " taken 
 grass and pounded it, and made soup from the native 
 dog. I would eat anything then. Any man would 
 have committed a murder, ay, three murders, for a 
 month's provisions." " For a long period/' said an- 
 other, " my ration was only a cob or single head of 
 corn in a day, and for three years I lived under a 
 constant apprehension that I should perish of hunger." 
 It was a long time before sufficient grain was grown 
 to feed the settlement; and for fifteen years fresh 
 meat was a rare luxury to the authorities, while
 
 166 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 meat was almost unknown to the convicts. The 
 settlement was, in fact, as has been truly said, a 
 population of slaves and slave-drivers, who did not 
 colonize, but were encamped upon the land they 
 occupied. 
 
 II. THE AUSTRALIAN PASTURES. 
 
 The process, as one of the governors who succeeded 
 Captain Phillip phrased it, of turning pickpockets 
 into ploughmen was attended with but scant success, 
 and free settlers arrived in very slender numbers. 
 The voyage was an expensive one, and there was, 
 indeed, nothing tempting in the life of the colony. 
 In 1792 there were sixty-seven settlers, holding 
 under grant 3470 acres, of which only 417 acres 
 were under cultivation. There was some talk o 
 abandoning this costly and unproductive experiment, 
 when an incident occurred which had an important 
 effect on the future destiny of the colony. A band 
 of natives came to the neighbourhood of Sydney to 
 celebrate one of their festivals. The settlers observed 
 that in some of their dances they imitated the bel- 
 lowing and butting of cattle. No native cattle had 
 hitherto been seen. The " black fellows" were 
 questioned as to the meaning of the sounds and signs 
 which they made. They replied that on their way 
 to Sydney they had seen a great herd of wild cattle 
 feeding, near large pools in an open forest. Scouts
 
 SHEEP ARE INTRODUCED. 1G7 
 
 were immediately sent out, who confirmed their report. 
 The event was deemed of such importance, that the 
 governor himself and his staff paid a visit to the 
 herd ; which proved to be of the Cape breed, humphy 
 on the shoulders and with long horns. During the first 
 year of the colony, four cows and a couple of bulls 
 strayed into the woods, in search, probably, of a 
 better supply of fodder. As they never returned, it 
 was supposed that they had perished in the wilds; 
 but there can be no doubt that the herd which was 
 now discovered was the offspring of the wanderers. 
 Mr. John M 'Arthur, an officer in the colonial garri- 
 son, endowed with great foresight, and of an enter- 
 prising spirit, was struck by the good sense and 
 discrimination of the cattle, in exchanging their 
 miserable quarters by the sea -shore for such a capital 
 grazing-ground as that in which they were found. 
 So he settled in the same district, and devoted himself 
 to stock-breeding. In this pursuit he was successful 
 beyond expectation, and his example was followed 
 by many. But M'Arthur not only led the way in 
 the rearing of cattle ; he introduced a superior breed 
 of sheep. His keen, observing eyes, did not fail to 
 mark the improvement whicli took place in the coats 
 of the hairy Bengal and fat-tailed Cape sheep, after 
 a brief residence in the colony ; and then it struck 
 him that there were many points of resemblance in 
 soil and climate between Spain and Australia. Act- 
 ing on this idea, he imported a number of the famous
 
 168 TUB AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 Spanish merinoes, which took to their new country in 
 the most kindly manner; and Australia is now the 
 greatest wool-growing country in the world.* 
 
 Attracted by the success of this new enterprise, 
 free settlers began gradually to arrive in greater 
 numbers, though for a long time they were far 
 exceeded by the convict class. Sydney was now a 
 thriving little town. Except the governor's man- 
 sion, which was of stone, and one or two brick 
 houses occupied by officials, most of the dwellings 
 consisted of only plastered logs and shingled roofs; 
 but as they were snug and comfortable, the inhabi- 
 tants were content. Their harbour was the finest 
 in the world, sending its arms in among their cot- 
 tages and gardens. Every year, in the season, a 
 number of whalers sailed out of it for .a cruise in the 
 great Southern Ocean, and returned laden with black 
 oil and sperm. A trade in various other commo- 
 dities was also springing up; and the colonists were 
 sadly hampered for want of space. They required 
 more extensive pasture-grounds for their sheep than 
 lay between the waters of the Bay and the Blue 
 Mountains; but those rugged heights seemed insur- 
 mountable. The natives declared that they were 
 haunted by a race of malignant spirits, who vindic- 
 tively x destroyed all who dared to invade their 
 domains. High rewards were offered for the dis- 
 
 * In 1860 the export of wool from Sydney was between twelve and thirteen 
 million pounds in weight, and 1,123,609 in ralua. There are over six millions ol 
 sheep in the colony.
 
 NEW GROUND OPENED UP. 169 
 
 covery of any opening in the hills, of even a mere 
 sheep track; and many brave fellows explored them 
 zealously, clambering up and down their precipitous 
 crags, arid peeping into their black, yawning chasms. 
 Some went forth on this mission who never were 
 seen or heard of afterwards. Some were brought 
 home shattered by a fall from some dizzy eminence. 
 It was not till 1813 that Mr. Evans, a govern- 
 ment surveyor, discovered the long sought pass ; and 
 immediately the pent-up flocks and herds of the 
 colonists poured through it to the " fresh fields and 
 pastures new" on the other side. 
 
 To appreciate the value of this discovery we must 
 dissociate from the idea of grass in Australia the 
 soft, close, velvety texture of English grass. The 
 grass of Australia never forms turf ; it grows in 
 tufts, so that however green a plain looks in the 
 distance, the dark soil can always be seen between 
 the blades when you are close to it. It takes from 
 three to five acres to feed a single sheep ; and con- 
 sequently the sheep-walks and cattle-runs of the 
 great breeders range over immense tracts of country. 
 The pass through the mountains gave access to 
 boundless plains; but, unfortunately, the supply of 
 water was scanty and capricious. As the flocks 
 increase, the owners must penetrate further into the 
 interior in search of fresh runs. The " bush " now 
 becomes the scene of an important phase of Austra- 
 lian life, while the shepherd and stockman take rank
 
 170 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 as the representative men of the colony. The pas- 
 toral life is lonely and monotonous. At day-break 
 the shepherd unpens his flock. Advancing slowly for 
 four or five miles, they crop the grass. After an 
 interval of repose at the hot noon-tide, the sheep are 
 driven home again. The fare of the shepherd is per- 
 petually the same ; but it is ample. It is an unvary- 
 ing course of " damper," * grilled mutton, and tea 
 boiled with sugar in a tin pannikin, which he always 
 carries with him. In a country like Australia, 
 where the number of a flock ranges from 20,000 to 
 50,000, the shepherd's career is not devoid of cares 
 and dangers. The dingoe, or wild dog of the bush, 
 may worry his sheep. He himself may be attacked 
 by treacherous natives or ruffianly bush-rangers. 
 
 The stockman has a more exciting career than the 
 shepherd, and is exposed to greater perils and priva- 
 tions. Mounted on a rough, sturdy horse, with his 
 hat of cabbage-tree palm strapped tightly under his 
 chin, to keep it from blowing off when he is at full 
 gallop, with feet sheathed in slipper-stirrups of brass, 
 and flourishing his stock whip, he presents a strik- 
 ing appearance. The stock whip is a very formid- 
 able weapon. To a handle of a foot and a half in 
 length is attached a thick tapering thong, from 
 twelve to sixteen feet long, and weighing about a 
 couple of pounds, which is finished off with a 
 
 * Flour and water kneaded together and baked in flat cakes amongst the aalini 
 of a wood fire.
 
 FOLLOWING A HERD. 171 
 
 " cracker." The stockman prides himself upon his 
 skill in wielding this instrument. At a considerable 
 distance he can flick a fly off the ear of an ox, or 
 cut a piece out of the animal's back, if he deem 
 such correction necessary. When he cracks the 
 whip the noise is like a discharge of musketry, and 
 is of itself quite sufficient to recall any well-regulated 
 beast to a sense of its P's and Q's. He must be a 
 resolute, ready-witted fellow, for his charge are often 
 as shy as they are refractory. Sometimes a whole 
 herd will go off silently through the night in Indian 
 file, and the stockman has to gallop back for miles, 
 and perhaps for days, before he recovers the deserters. 
 He has to follow the cattle across hills and plains, 
 through forests and rivers, sometimes on horseback, 
 sometimes wading or swimming. He may have to 
 gallop at full speed at noon, when the thermometer 
 is at 140 degrees; and to sleep on the ground, with 
 only a rug for a covering, amid a pelting rain, with 
 the thermometer at 40. There is a story of one 
 who passed the whole night in a deluge of rain, 
 sitting on a saddle to keep him off the flooded 
 ground, and holding another saddle over his head 
 as a substitute for an umbrella ! Traversing a wider 
 tract of country than the shepherd, the stockman is 
 more exposed to attack from bush-rangers or hostile 
 natives. There are, however, two grave dangers 
 which both share in common. One is a fire in 
 the bush. This "terrible catastrophe has been often
 
 172 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 described, but perhaps never so graphically as by 
 Mr. W. Howitt in the following extract. It relates 
 to the great conflagration of " Black Thursday," 
 which desolated so wide a tract of country, on the 
 6th February 1851: 
 
 " What a scene ! The woods were flaming and 
 crackling in one illimitable conflagration. The wind 
 dashing from the north in gusts of inconceivable 
 heat, seemed to tear the very face and shrivel up the 
 lungs. The fire leaped from tree to tree, flashing 
 and roaring along with the speed and destructiveness 
 of lightning. The sear foliage seemed to match the 
 fire, and to perish in it in a riot of demoniacal 
 revelry. On it flew, fast as the fleetest horse could 
 gallop; and consuming acres of leaves in a moment, 
 still remained to rage and roar amongst the branches 
 and in the hollow stems of ancient trees. There was 
 a sound as of thunder, mingled with the crash of 
 falling trees, and the wild cries of legions of birds of 
 all kinds which fell scorched and blackened and dead 
 to the ground. Now the flames came racing along 
 the grass with the speed of the wind, and mowing 
 all smooth as a pavement; now they tore furiously 
 through some near point in the forest, and flung 
 burning ashes and tangles of blazing bark upon the 
 galloping rider. When the wind veered, the reek 
 driven backward revealed a most amazing scene: 
 The blazing skirts of the forest ; huge isolated trees, 
 glaring red standing columns of fire : here, a vast
 
 FIRE AND WATER. 173 
 
 troop of wild horses, with flying manes and tails, 
 rushing with thundering hoofs over the plain ; there, 
 herds of cattle with bloodshot eyes and hanging 
 tongues, running they knew not whither, from the 
 fire ; troops of kangaroos leaping franticly across 
 the riders' path, their hair singed, and giving out 
 strongty the stench of fire ; birds of all kinds and 
 colours shrieking piteously as they drove wildly by, 
 and yet seeing no spot of safety ; thousands of sheep 
 standing huddled in terror on the scorched flats, with 
 singed wool, deserted by their shepherds, who had 
 fled for their lives." 
 
 The other peril which menaces both shepherd and 
 stockman arises from the singular character of the 
 Australian water-courses. There is a number of 
 permanent rivers, and the country through which 
 they run is of course quickly occupied, and jealously 
 retained. But there are other streams, of a myste- 
 rious and delusive character. By the side of one of 
 these a flockmaster may lead his sheep, rejoicing in 
 the abundance of water. In one season the waters 
 will suddenly swell into an inundation, sweeping 
 away a tithe of his flock, and perhaps huts and 
 homestead also. Another time a series of pools will 
 alone mark the course of the river. Again, the water 
 will entirely disappear, and leave the stony bed dry 
 and dusty, while the poor sheep gasp in an agony of 
 thirst, and strew the banks with their carcasses. 
 
 The pass through the Blue Mountains gave the
 
 174 TUB AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 settlers abundance of land. The next object of 
 search was water, and the colonization of the conti- 
 nent may be said to have kept pace with the dis- 
 covery of sources of that indispensable element. 
 Between 1813 and 1820 the courses of the Mac- 
 quarie, Lachlan, and Murrumbidgee rivers were 
 tracked. Within the next ten years, Captain Sturt 
 discovered the river Darling, and followed the Murray 
 from its junction with the Murrumbidgee to the sea. 
 The new district soon swarmed with the overflowing 
 flocks and herds of New South Wales. In a few 
 years it was formed into a separate colony, under 
 the name of South Australia, and Adelaide was 
 founded. 
 
 A new class, the "overlanders/' now appeared. 
 " The overlanders," says Sir George Grey, "are 
 nearly all men in the prime of youth, whose occupa- 
 tion it is to convey large herds of stock from market 
 to market, and from colony to colony. The over- 
 landers are generally descended from good families, 
 have received a liberal education (Etonians and 
 Oxonians are to be found amongst them), and even 
 at their first start in the colonies, were possessed of 
 what is considered an independence. Among them 
 is to be found a degree of polish and frankness 
 rarely to be looked for in such a mode of life ; and 
 in the distant desert you unexpectedly stumble on 
 the finished gentleman. The magnitude of the 
 operations of the overlanders would scarcely be
 
 SETTLEMENT OF VICTORIA. 175 
 
 credited. A whole fortune is risked, and in the wil- 
 derness." These dashing fellows wear a picturesque' 
 garb gay flannel shirts, tall jack boots, broad 
 brimmed sombreros, and belts bearing knives and 
 pistols and ride the best blood horses they can 
 get. 
 
 The settlement of Victoria sprang from the pres- 
 sure of overflowing flocks and herds in two opposite 
 quarters, New South Wales on the north, and 
 Tasmania (Van Dieman's Land) on the south. In 
 1836 Major (afterwards Sir Thomas) Mitchell, push- 
 ing down the Darling and Murray, struck into a 
 land which, from its exuberant fertility, he called 
 Australia Felix. Settlers hastened thither from 
 New South Wales, but found the district already 
 inhabited by Englishmen. For years before, the 
 whalers had carried to Tasmania glowing reports of 
 the rich and beautiful land on the other side of 
 Bass's Strait. Every now and again two or three 
 convicts would conspire to escape, seize a boat, and 
 make for the other side of the channel. Occasional 
 settlers followed their example, as space became 
 confined in the island. After Major Mitchell's sur- 
 vey in 1836, however, the Tasmanians flocked to 
 the new settlement, meeting there a similar stream 
 of emigration from the north. Thus the colony of 
 Victoria was speedily peopled; and in 1837 the 
 foundations of Melbourne were laid.
 
 176 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 III. THE GOLD DIGGINGS. 
 
 In the beginning of May 1851 an exciting 
 rumour pervaded Sydney. It was said that a gold 
 field had been discovered within the colony. Many 
 were incredulous. How was it, they asked, that no 
 trace of it had ever been discovered before? Others, 
 however, recalled cases in which persons in the 
 colony had unaccountably become possessed of gold. 
 There was one old shepherd who used to come up 
 to town at intervals to dispose of small quantities of 
 the precious metal. He was watched, but no one 
 ever discovered whence he got it; and it was sup- 
 posed that he was in league with some bush-rangers, 
 who melted down their booty. A convict also had 
 been flogged for having a lump of gold, as no one 
 doubted that it had been gained by robbery, and as he 
 stubbornly refused to tell how he came by it. While 
 people in Sydney were debating the authenticity of 
 the news, there arrived a confirmation of it in the 
 shape of a quantity of nuggets. Mr. E. H. Har- 
 greaves was the discoverer. Tempted away from 
 his farm near Bathurst to seek for gold in the Cali- 
 fornian placers, he was persuaded, from the similarity 
 of the geological formation, that there must be gold 
 also near his own home. On his return he at once 
 commenced a vigorous search, and at the end of one 
 or two months found some gold. 
 
 No sooner was the truth established, than there
 
 A GENERAL RUSH. 177 
 
 was an universal rush to the diggings. Not a 
 pair of stout arms in the settlement would consent 
 to do ordinary drudgery when such a golden for- 
 tune was within their reach. The business of the 
 colony was brought almost to a stand still. The 
 banker was deserted by his clerks ; the merchant 
 found himself alone in his warehouse. No sooner 
 did a ship arrive in the harbour, than the crew at 
 once ran away to the diggings. The shepherd left 
 his sheep to take care of themselves; and the cattle 
 wandered undisturbed by the crack of the stockman's 
 whip, for he, too, was on the road to El Dorado. 
 All the social relations of the community were at 
 once overthrown. The governor of a province had 
 to light his own fire and black his own boots ; the 
 sons of the chief -justice had to groom their father's 
 horses and cook the dinner ; merchants had to de- 
 liver their own goods, and store-keepers to officiate 
 as their own porters. Ladies had to do kitchen 
 work, and the large flock-masters had to employ 
 even their little children to tend the sheep. Not a 
 few employers were ruined by this sudden revolu- 
 tion. We are told of one or two who followed their 
 men in the vain hope of persuading them to return, 
 and who were offered service by their former ser- 
 vants. Along all the roads to the gold fields poured 
 a continuous stream of gold-seekers, men on foot 
 with bundles slung on the end of spades or guns; 
 brown-bearded stockmen in red shirts, dashing along 
 
 (84) 12
 
 178 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 on horseback ; families in white-tilted carts; huge 
 drays loaded with stores floundering in the deep 
 pools of mud which dotted the highway. Men 
 of all nations were there, including Chinamen with 
 large straw hats and wide blue trousers, shuffling 
 along with heavy burdens swinging at the end of 
 the long poles which they carried on their shoulders, 
 When at night-fall the host halted, the woods 
 resounded with the crash of falling trees, white tents 
 glittered among the green foliage, and countless fires 
 shed a red glare around. The inhabitants of remote, 
 secluded homesteads, were startled by the invasion of 
 this strange, innumerable horde, but became reconciled 
 to it when they discovered how the price of their sheep 
 and poultry and flour rose. Sheep were no longer 
 killed for the wool and tallow, but were sold as meat. 
 The diggings presented a strange spectacle. The 
 lonely bush, where formerly reigned a silence un- 
 broken save by the musical note of the bell-bird, 
 the quaint whistle of the magpie, or the grotesque 
 hoo-hoo, ha, ha, ha, of the laughing jackass (a species 
 of kingfisher) now resounded with a Babel of voices 
 and a confusion of strange sounds, amid which the 
 creaking clatter of the " cradles" rose predominant. 
 The grassy glades, where the emu used to stalk un- 
 molested, and the kangaroo to lead forth her young 
 in peace, were now honey- combed with holes from 
 ten to forty feet deep. A range of mangled stumps 
 alone marked the site of the forest. An array ol
 
 SCENE AT THE GOLD DIGGINGS.
 
 SCENE AT THE DIGGINGS. 179 
 
 rude huts of stringy bark, plastered with mud and 
 thatched with dry leaves, and tents of canvas, 
 blankets, or bullock hides, rose in the wilderness. 
 A legion of wild, bearded men, in scarlet shirts 
 and tall boots, with veils tied over their faces to 
 keep off the swarming flies, bare arms, and clothes 
 stained with yellow mud, burrowed in the deep 
 holes, dabbled up to the waist in the cold water of 
 the stream while the rest of their bodies were almost 
 melting under the sweltering glare of the sun, rocked 
 their cradles,* or washed the precious particles out of 
 the mud and sand in little iron pans. 
 
 In such a mixed community, engaged in a pursuit 
 calculated to produce rather a debasing effect on the 
 human character, there was, of course, at the outset 
 much lawlessness and crime. The English love of 
 order and obedience to law, however, quickly as- 
 serted itself. The government commissioner found 
 less difficulty than was to be expected in collecting 
 the license fees from the diggers, and the public 
 opinion of the camp supported the authorities in the 
 punishment of criminals. 
 
 * The " cradle" is a sort of oblong-shaped box about eight feet long. At its head 
 is a coarse wire grating, upon which the loose earth is emptied, and which, of course, 
 prevents the larger stones from finding their way to the interior. It stands upon 
 " rockers," whence its name. The bottom of the cradle is of rounded form, with an 
 inclination downward of half an inch or more to the foot, and has several small 
 elects across from side to side. A stream of water is poured through the machine, 
 and the rockers are meanwhile kept in motion. The water gradually clears away 
 the earthy and gravelly matter, which finds its way out at the foot, while the gold 
 and finer particles of sand are left behind, accumulated above the upper cleets at 
 the bottom of the cradle. Such is the rude and primitive form of gold-wash- 
 ing common in Australia, and introduced thither ffom Californian experience. 
 H - . Hughts.
 
 180 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 It was at Summerhill Creek (since called Ophir), 
 about a hundred and forty miles from Sydney, that 
 gold was first discovered in Australia ; but the search 
 was afterwards conducted with success along a great 
 part of the valley of the Macquarie. At Meroo Creek 
 there was a stone on which, doubtless, many a des- 
 perate bush-ranger had sat and smoked his pipe, plan- 
 ning his next foray on peaceful settlers. In the summer 
 of 1851 that stone was found to contain a hundred- 
 weight of gold, the largest mass of the precious 
 metal ever heard of. Auriferous deposits, richer 
 than those of New South Wales, were found in 
 September 1851, in Victoria. At first it threatened 
 the ruin of Melbourne, for it almost depopulated 
 it ; at Geelong, only a single man, it is said, at one 
 time remained. But it soon made the fortune of 
 the place. Melbourne was then a quiet colonial 
 town. The arrival of a steamer was still an event, 
 and at times there was not a vessel of any kind dis- 
 charging at the Geelong wharf. When the squatters 
 came up with their clip of wool, the streets were 
 thronged and bustling; but that was only once a 
 year. There were very few stone buildings, and 
 slab-huts and weather-board houses composed the 
 town. There were patches of grass even in some 
 of the main thoroughfares, and in the less fre- 
 quented streets bogs were not uncommon. The 
 discovery of gold in Victoria, however, attracted 
 vast crowds of emigrants, and Melbourne began to
 
 GROWTH OF MELBOURNE. 181 
 
 assume extended proportions. Houses could not be 
 built fast enough, and Canvas Town a confused 
 maze of tents and booths sprang up on the south 
 side of the Yarra. In 1851 the population of 
 Melbourne was ninety -five thousand. In the fol- 
 lowing year it was more than doubled, and it now 
 holds a permanent population of over one hundred 
 and thirty thousand. Its docks are a forest of 
 masts. Its warehouses are of vast size and hand- 
 some appearance. A million has been spent on its 
 broad gas-lit streets, and another million on its 
 supply of water. This is rapid progress for a city 
 little more than twenty years old. At the same 
 time settled towns have sprung up at the diggings. 
 At Ballarat, Castlemaine, Sandhurst, and other places, 
 where a few years ago the desolate bush was 
 tenanted only by wild beasts, where but yesterday, 
 as it seems, was to be seen the rude confusion of 
 the gold-seekers' camp, there are now handsome 
 streets of brick and stone, imposing public buildings, 
 miles of gas-lit thoroughfares, a police and a munici- 
 pality. In the neighbourhood of every large gold 
 field, also, immense tracts of land have been enclosed 
 and cultivated. The colony has made 600 miles of 
 metalled roads, and cleared 500 more ; it has nearly 
 900 places of worship, with more than 900 public 
 and private schools ; it has a university, a public 
 library, a museum of arts, 10 savings banks, many 
 hospitals and asylums; but not a single work-house,
 
 182 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 (for none is needed) throughout the length and 
 breadth of the territory. 
 
 The Australian group of colonies now comprises 
 New South Wales, the eldest of the family; Tas- 
 mania; South Australia; Victoria; Western Australia; 
 and Queensland, which is the youngest, being barely 
 twelve years old. They cover an area of nearly 
 2,500,000 square miles, or more than twenty times 
 the surface of the United Kingdom. They have 
 a population of 1,500,000. They raise a revenue 
 of more than 7,000,000 annually, and enjoy suffi- 
 cient credit to have a nucleus of debt to the amount 
 of 10,000,000. Their imports are valued at 
 30,000,000 a year, and their exports (chiefly gold 
 and wool) at 27,000,000. During the last ten 
 years, above 800 tons of gold, in value 104,64-9,728, 
 or more than an eighth of our national debt, have 
 been exported from Victoria to England. It is 
 said that, taking the whole of Australia, each colo- 
 nist has already reclaimed and cultivated twenty 
 acres of land. The great resources of Australia as 
 a wool-growing country have been lately augmented 
 by Mr. Ledger, the M'Arthur of our generation, 
 who, at a large expenditure, and with great 
 difficulty, has succeeded in introducing the llama 
 from Peru. When the government of Peru heard 
 of his project, they prohibited the exportation of 
 these animals; but with indomitable perseverance, 
 aided by local knowledge and an acquaintance with
 
 MRS. CAROLINE CHISHOLM. 183 
 
 the habits of the llama, Mr. Ledger collected about 
 eight hundred of them, drove them across the Andes, 
 and shipped them to New South Wales. At first a 
 number of them died, but they have now become 
 acclimatized, and are multiplying rapidly. It is 
 estimated that before the end of the century the 
 clip of llama wool will exceed fifty million pounds 
 in weight. Cotton has also been cultivated with 
 success in Queensland, which promises to rival India 
 in supplying the mother country with the invaluable 
 material of one of our chief manufactures. 
 
 In any account of the colonization of Australia, 
 however brief, mention must not be omitted of the 
 labours of Mrs. Caroline Chisholm. We have seen 
 how the magnetic attraction of gold peopled the 
 colonies; but the emigrants who were thus tempted 
 across the seas were not of the best class. A large 
 proportion of them were men of broken fortunes and 
 doubtful character; and women being in an insigni- 
 ficant minority, the elevating and refining influence 
 of the gentler sex one of the most valuable agents 
 of civilization was almost wholly wanting. Visit- 
 ing Sydney with her husband, an officer in the 
 Madras army, on furlough, Mrs. Chisholm at once 
 detected this evil, and with noble enterprise sought 
 to provide a remedy. She established a Home in 
 Sydney, where young friendless women were re- 
 ceived on their arrival in the colony, and where 
 emigrants who desired to proceed inland, obtained
 
 184 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 information and advice. Finding that there was a 
 great demand, not merely for domestic servants, but 
 for wives among the stock-breeders in the bush, and 
 that many girls were frightened to proceed alone, 
 Mrs. Chisholm collected a party, and herself led them 
 to their destination. Such success attended the 
 journey, that similar expeditions were organized. 
 Every year her journeys became longer, and her 
 parties larger. She went from farm to farm, and 
 anxiously scrutinized the character of any family 
 among whom she consented to leave one of : ' her 
 children," as she called her charges. The settlers 
 fully appreciated her exertions, and supplied her 
 liberally with lodgings, provisions, horses, and drays. 
 Shepherds would leave their work, and walk thirty 
 or forty miles to the station where she camped, in 
 order to choose a wife, bringing with them certificates 
 of character and their saving-bank books. To be one 
 of Mrs. Chisholm's young women was deemed a 
 strong recommendation. By the end of 1842 she 
 had succeeded in placing comfortably two thousand 
 emigrants of both sexes. Next she visited England, 
 and established a system of emigration in vhich 
 domestic ties were respected, and by which family 
 groups were transplanted to the other side of the 
 globe. Her true womanly instinct taught her that 
 the family principle is the true basis of all sound and 
 permanent civilization. With less than 2000, be- 
 tween 1850 and 1855, she sent out to Australia
 
 AN UTTER BLANK. 185 
 
 more than a thousand colonists, and all of a superior 
 class. 
 
 IV. THE AUSTRALIAN INTERIOR. 
 
 Singular as it may sound to many, the only large 
 tract of the earth's surface of which we were, until 
 very lately, utterly ignorant, consisted of British 
 territory. No doubt there was, as there is still, an 
 immense area of African soil on which no European 
 ever set eye or foot. No doubt there are wide dis- 
 tricts in South America with which even the rulers 
 of the land have no acquaintance. No doubt Mon- 
 golia is barely known even to the Chinese ; while the 
 grim Jotuns of frost and snow have suffered the 
 invasion of but a small part of their polar realms. 
 15ut then in every one of these cases we had learned 
 enough of the land in question to define its general 
 character with tolerable accuracy. The interior of 
 Australia, however, was still an utter blank. Popular 
 conjecture pictured it as another Sahara, as barren 
 but more extensive than that of Africa, a desert, 
 which in summer was a hollow basin of burning 
 sand, and in the rainy season a vast shallow sea. 
 It was the dream of some romantic savans that the 
 inland waste of waters might perhaps prove to be 
 the retreat of the huge old saurians, and that the 
 dodo and the pterodactyle might be found skimming 
 across its breast.
 
 186 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 Hemmed in for twenty-five years by the steep, 
 forbidding heights of the Blue Mountains, the set- 
 tlers of Port Jackson no sooner surmounted that 
 barrier than they began to extend their surveys 
 with spirit and success. Exploration, however, 
 was almost entirely confined to the south-east 
 corner of Australia, which is marked off by the 
 River Darling, until, in 1847, Captain Sturt, the 
 father of Australian discovery, penetrated into the 
 interior, and almost touched the core of the conti- 
 nent. His journey to the first depot, at Laidlaw's 
 Ponds, lay for the most part along the grassy flats 
 of the Darling, and was accomplished with ease. A 
 hot sandy desert succeeded, across which his party 
 toiled slowly and painfully. The birds flew gasping 
 overhead. The iron yokes of the bullocks became 
 so hot that they could not be placed on the animals 
 for fear of burning them. When a breeze sprang 
 up, it felt like the scorching blaze of a mighty fur- 
 nace, which the travellers could not face. The coun- 
 try grew more dreary and inhospitable at every step. 
 On reaching lat. 28, Sturt wrote : " We are now in 
 the most gloomy desert man ever trod ; all the sand 
 ridges are covered with tussocks of spinifex (a thick 
 wiry grass generally found near the sea coast, and 
 only in the most barren situations). These deserts 
 are as silent as the grave." Further on he says : 
 " Every animal has now forsaken this lonely and 
 inhospitable region. If a bird .appears, it is only for
 
 STURT'S EXPLORATIONS. 187 
 
 a moment, to rest its weary wings and then pass on. 
 Birds of prey, parrots, pigeons, have all migrated to 
 the north-west; whilst, on the other hand, pelicans, 
 cormorants, and wild-fowl come in from that quar- 
 ter. The first is a strong proof there is a better 
 country to which the birds go; the other is equally 
 conclusive of there being a desert or a sea between 
 us and it." At Evelyn Creek, the second depot, 
 Sturt's further progress was impeded for six months 
 by the excessive drought which prevailed. He and 
 his companions made excursions in every direction, 
 but not a drop of moisture could they find, save the 
 scanty supply at the depot, which was gradually fail- 
 ing before their eyes. " Here we are," says Skirt, 
 " bound hand and foot, as it were, without the power 
 of moving, captives in a large and gloomy prison." 
 For nearly eight months no rain fell. It came at 
 length, when they were almost in despair, and the 
 novel sound of the rippling waters in a little gully 
 close to their tents had a sweeter and more sooth- 
 ing sound than the finest melody they had ever 
 heard. With four companions, Sturt pushed for- 
 ward in a north-west direction. Crossing a dark- 
 green plain of samphire bushes dotted with the dry 
 beds of small salt lagoons of sparkling white, they 
 encountered a series of formidable ridges of a fiery 
 red colour, rising one after another like gigantic 
 waves, on the summits of which the sand lay like 
 crests of snowy foam. Beyond Lay an immense
 
 188 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 stony desert; which in turn gave place to a wide 
 earthy plain, on the surface of which neither herb 
 nor stone was visible. As they advanced the heat 
 became more intolerable, vegetation faded out of 
 sight, and almost every drop of water had evaporated. 
 Drought and the indisposition of one of the party 
 compelled a retreat. Starting again for the depot 
 with two men, Sturt followed a route to the east of 
 his former track, in the hope of avoiding the grim 
 stony desert. At Cooper's Creek he found abun- 
 dance of water and rich vegetation. A tribe of some 
 four hundred natives inhabited the spot, subsisting 
 on the seeds of a coarse grass, which they stacked 
 and threshed. This pleasant scene was quickly 
 exchanged for a sterile plain, on the other side of 
 which lay the arid, adamantine region, which the 
 explorers were so anxious to avoid. Sturt shuddered 
 as he beheld once more the stony waves, which 
 stretched in an unbroken line across the horizon. 
 Again the lack of water and the exhaustion of his 
 men and horses prevented a further advance. With 
 deep reluctance Sturt retraced his steps, having 
 reached 24 30' lat., 137 59' long, in his first, and 
 25 58' lat., 139 36' long, in his second expedition. 
 Up to 1860 all subsequent attempts to explore 
 the interior proved futile and disastrous. Eyre wab 
 twice baffled in endeavouring to penetrate from the 
 south-east. Poor Leichardt, starting from the east, 
 vanished into the mysterious region fifteen years ago,
 
 STUART'S EXPEDITION. 189 
 
 and has never since been heard of. Kennedy, in a 
 similar attempt, was murdered by the natives. The 
 elder Gregory, in 1856, tracked the Victoria Eiver 
 till it disappeared in a desert in lat. 18. It was not 
 till Mr. M'Donell Stuart put forth his hand that the 
 veil was lifted from the interior of the great Austra- 
 lian continent. 
 
 Mr. Stuart had already distinguished himself as a 
 companion of Captain Sturt in 1847, and as the dis- 
 coverer in 1858 of eighteen hundred square miles 
 of valuable territory, well supplied with water, and 
 covered with luxuriant vegetation, to the northward 
 of Spencer's Gulf. In the latter expedition, with 
 two attendants, and no other instruments save his 
 watch and compass, he pushed through a marshy, 
 saline desert, which lay between the sea and the 
 inland country, and encountered difficulties and 
 dangers which would have appalled any less intrepid 
 pioneer. 
 
 Early in 1860 Mr. Stuart set out from Adelaide, 
 again with only two companions, to go from south 
 to north, right across the continent. On quitting 
 Chamber's Creek, Stuart, profiting by the experience 
 he had derived on his former visit to that quarter, 
 took a northerly course slightly tending to the west, 
 and, more fortunate than Sturt, succeeded in keeping 
 clear of the stony desert. On the 23d April he 
 reared a cone of stones, and hoisted the British flag 
 on a mount (Central Mount Stuart) about two miles
 
 190 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 from the centre of Australia. Thus far his path had 
 lain through a well watered, and, on the whole, fer- 
 tile country. He had crossed two magnificent creeks ; 
 one of which, the Neales, at a point where several 
 tributaries joined, spread out into a sheet of water 
 a mile in width ; while the other, the Myall, was 
 more than one hundred and thirty yards from bank 
 to bank. In lat. 26 he came upon another fine 
 creek, the Frew, which fed numerous large water- 
 holes, and was surrounded by plains of luxuriant 
 grass, wild oats, wheat, and rye. Innumerable 
 smaU creeks and pools were also met with, as well 
 as a large reservoir of water three hundred feet in 
 circumference, and from twelve to twenty feet deep. 
 Towards the centre the country assumed somewhat 
 of a tropical aspect, being dotted with India-rubber 
 and cork trees, and a palm with small broad light- 
 green leaves, bearing a large nut, the kernel of which 
 resembles that of a cocoa nut, and has, when roasted, 
 the flavour of a potato. It was in the attempt to cross 
 from the centre to the northern coast that Mr. Stuart 
 underwent the greatest perils and privations. "After 
 making the centre," he writes, " I was assailed by 
 that dreadful disease the scurvy, which completely 
 prostrated me, and rendered me quite helpless. Still 
 I persevered, and endeavoured to reach the mouth of 
 the Victoria River on a north-west course, but was 
 obliged to relinquish the attempt three separate times 
 through want of water. The country in which I
 
 IN THE WILDERNESS. 191 
 
 got the first course was an immense plain of red 
 light soil, covered with nothing but spinifex and 
 large gum trees, not a blade of grass. On this the 
 horses were three days, without a drop of water ; 
 and had I not been fortunate enough to drop in with 
 a native well, I should have lost nearly all of them 
 I then tried again twice to the eastward to round 
 this horrid plain. The result was the same. I was 
 now forced to go back into the centre." The retreat 
 was not commenced a day too soon. A journey of 
 one hundred and twelve miles under a scorching sun, 
 and over a hot sandy soil, without water for one 
 hundred and one hours, exhausted the explorers, and 
 drove the horses into a frenzy through intense thirst. 
 Three of the animals perished by the way. Stuart 
 next made two resolute efforts to reach the Gulf of 
 Carpentaria. His first excursion was brought to an 
 abrupt termination by want of water. His second 
 expedition was more fortunate, and led him north- 
 ward through a beautiful and fertile district, where 
 there were several fine water-holes, and creeks swarm- 
 ing with fish and water-fowl. Although the country 
 became subsequently more sandy, and yielded no 
 other vegetation than spinifex and dense scrub, the 
 explorers would no doubt have traversed it had it 
 not been for the hostile attacks of the natives. 
 Hitherto the few aborigines whom they had met 
 had either fled in terror or behaved peaceably, but 
 they now mustered in large numbers, beset their
 
 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 track, and attempted to cut them off from the water- 
 holes. At last the natives openly assailed them. 
 " It was nearly dark," says Stuart, " when they came 
 upon us, and we were in the middle of a small scrub. 
 There was no sign whatever of any of them being 
 near as we approached the creek. The moment we 
 entered the scrub they were upon us. Every bush 
 seemed to have hidden a man. Upwards of thirty 
 attacked us in front. How many more endeavoured 
 to surround us and cut us off from our pack-horses I 
 cannot tell. They seemed to be in a great fury, 
 moving their boomerangs about their heads, and 
 howling to the top of their voices, also performing 
 some sort of dance. Putting the horses on towards 
 the creek, and placing ourselves between them and 
 the natives, I told the men to get their guns ready, for 
 I could see they were determined upon mischief. They 
 paid no regard to all the signs of friendship I kept 
 constantly making, but were still gradually approach- 
 ing nearer. I felt very unwilling to fire upon them, 
 and continued making signs of peace and friendship ; 
 but all to no purpose. An old man (the leader) who 
 was in advance made signs with his boomerang for 
 us to be off; which proved to be one of defiance, for 
 I had no sooner turned my horse's head to see if 
 that was what they wished, than we received a shower 
 of boomerangs, accompanied by a fearful yell : they 
 then commenced jumping, dancing, yelling, showing 
 their arms in all sorts of postures, like so many fiends,
 
 ENCOUNTER WITH THE NATIVES. 193 
 
 and setting fire to the grass. I could see many 
 others getting up from behind the bush ; still I felt 
 unwilling to fire upon them, and tried to make them 
 understand that we wished to do them no harm. 
 They now came within forty yards of us, and again 
 made a charge, throwing their boomerangs, which 
 came whistling and whizzing past our ears. One 
 spear struck my horse. I then gave orders to fire, 
 which stayed their mad career for a little. Our 
 pack-horses, which were before us, took fright when 
 they heard the firing and fearful yelling, and made 
 off for the creek. Seeing the blacks running from 
 bush to bush with the intention of cutting us off 
 from them, while those in front were still yelling, 
 throwing their boomerangs, and coming near to us, 
 we gave them another reception, and sent Ben after 
 the horses to drive them to a more favourable place, 
 while Kekwick and I remained to cover our rear. 
 We soon got in advance of our enemies, but they still 
 kept foUowing beyond the reach of our guns, the 
 fearful yelling continuing, and fires springing in every 
 direction ; and it being now quite dark, with the 
 country scrubby, and our enemies numerous, bold, and 
 daring, we saw we could easily be surrounded and 
 destroyed by such determined fellows as they had 
 shown themselves to be. Seeing there was no chance 
 with such fearful odds against us (ten to one), and 
 knowing the disadvantages under which we laboured, 
 I very unwillingly made up my mind to push on to 
 
 (84) 13
 
 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 last night's camp; which we did." Stuart and his 
 men thus escaped ; but with such foes around them, 
 and the water-holes being few and far between, it 
 was deemed prudent to turn homeward. From the 
 tactics displayed by the savages, Stuart was disposed 
 to believe they had encountered white men before. 
 On another occasion one of the natives made a 
 masonic sign to Mr. Stuart, and evinced much satis- 
 faction when the white man returned it, patting him 
 on the back, and stroking his hair. 
 
 Returning in safety to Adelaide, Mr. Stuart was 
 promptly re-equipped, and without delay set out a 
 second time with an adequate force to complete the 
 passage across the continent. From this journey he 
 returned last September, without, however, having 
 passed from sea to sea. 
 
 Having reached within ninety-five miles of the 
 northern coast, an impenetrable forest barred his 
 further progress. His most northerly point was 
 17 lat. and 133 long. The observations which he 
 made in 1860 were fully confirmed by his explora- 
 tions in 1861. He traversed many arid tracts, but 
 on the whole the country was fruitful and valuable. 
 He saw reason also to suspect the existence of a 
 rich auriferous region. By this time Mr. Stuart 
 has probably set out on a third journey to the 
 interior. On this occasion, however, it is under- 
 stood he will start from the north instead of the 
 south coast.
 
 ST011Y OF BURKE AND WILLS. 195 
 
 Stuart having reached lat. 1 7 from the south, and 
 Gregory lat. 18 from the north, the continent might 
 be said, practically, to have been crossed from one 
 shore to the other. Last year, however, one party 
 of explorers actually passed from south to north. 
 This feat was reserved for the ill-fated Burke and 
 his companions. The newspapers have already told 
 the story of this melancholy expedition. It was 
 badly planned, and intrusted to incompetent hands. 
 Five explorers, with ten European and three Sepoy 
 attendants, and twenty-seven camels, to say nothing 
 of horses and waggons, formed far too large and cum- 
 brous a body for the work it had to do. The leader 
 was ill chosen, for he possessed neither experience 
 in exploration nor that resolution and foresight which 
 are essential in such a post. The defection of the 
 man in charge of the camels appears to have been 
 unjustifiable, but it cannot be supposed to have 
 affected the fate of the party. On the 1 6th Decem- 
 ber 1860, Burke, accompanied by Wills the surgeon, 
 two men, King and Gray, with six camels, one horse, 
 and three months' provisions, quitted Cooper's Creek, 
 leaving behind them a depot of stores in charge of 
 a man named Brahe and the rest of their party. 
 Six or seven weeks after they struck the River 
 Flinders, which flows into the Gulf of Carpentaria. 
 Here they left their camels and horse, and pro- 
 ceeded on foot towards the shore. It is not posi- 
 tively mentioned in the imperfect journals whicl
 
 19G THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 have come to hand that they saw the sea ; but as 
 they were only twenty-five miles from it when they 
 started on foot, and as, after travelling some distance, 
 they crossed a salt marsh, arrived at a channel full 
 of sea-water, and then moved " slowly down three 
 miles to camp," there can be little doubt that they 
 trod the beach of Carpentaria, and gazed upon the 
 waters of the gulf. With the loss of Gray they 
 made their way back to the depot, after an absence 
 of four months and five days, and found it deserted. 
 They rushed to the cache of provisions. All that 
 it contained was a note stating that Brahe and his 
 companions had departed seven hours before. "Worn 
 and weary with toil and privation, Burke and the 
 two others saw no prospect of overtaking their 
 friends. After a few days' repose, they started for 
 the settled parts of South Australia, but broke down 
 from sheer exhaustion. Returning to the depot, 
 their misery was aggravated by the discovery that 
 in the interim Brahe had actually revisited it, dis- 
 regarded the foot-prints of the camels, neglected to 
 open the cache, in which they had left a memorandum, 
 and gone away again. The rest of the story is 
 heart-rending. The poor fellows tried vainly to 
 prolong life on the seeds of a coarse trefoil called 
 nardoo. First Burke, then Wills died, from sheer 
 exhaustion, and King was left alone in the wilder- 
 ness. The report of his gun attracted a number of 
 natives, who ministered to his wants and restored
 
 LANDSBOROUQH S JOURNEY. 
 
 197 
 
 him to a search party which had been sent after the 
 missing explorers. 
 
 The meagre jottings contained in the journals of 
 the expedition give scarcely any description of the 
 country traversed. The fact, however, that the 
 party crossed the continent shows at least that water 
 did not fail them. The governor of Victoria has 
 expressed a belief, founded on the information of 
 the survivor, King, that the country around the Gulf 
 of Carpentaria (which he suggests should be called 
 Burke's Land) is admirably adapted for a settle- 
 ment. 
 
 The latest explorer, Mr. Landsborough, has achieved 
 a journey right across the continent (rather to the 
 east of poor Burke's route) from the Gulf of Carpen- 
 taria to Melbourne. Mr. Landsborough says the 
 shores of the gulf are so healthy, that " although 
 living in the open air, and not having the best of 
 food, the country agreed admirably with him, and 
 there was no fever or ague among any of the party.'/ 
 The country through which he passed was, for the 
 most part, " so well grassed, that the horses looked 
 as if they had been stable-fed." The most elevated 
 land on the Flinders is stated by Mr. Landsborough 
 not to exceed 1000 feet. 
 
 Putting together the results obtained by the va- 
 rious explorers, we can now obtain an adequate 
 idea of Central Australia. Originally, no doubt, as 
 Sturt conjectured, an archipelago of islands, the sea
 
 198 THE AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. 
 
 bed has been raised in the course of ages, until 
 it now forms a continuous continent. The idea of 
 an inland sea has now been utterly exploded; and 
 while there are, no doubt, many portions of the 
 interior as desolate and hopeless as those which 
 Sturt traversed, the stony desert and the plains of 
 sand do not represent its general character. In fact, 
 the central region is, after all, very like those other 
 parts of the continent with which we are already 
 acquainted; a smooth undulating surface running 
 into flats, and broken by the gentle swell of con- 
 tinuous ridges ; wide grassy plains, alternating with 
 tracts of dingy scrub and arid strips of sand ; 
 large creeks flowing for a certain distance like an 
 ordinary river, and then mysteriously disappearing. 
 M'Donell Stuart's researches, while they unquestion- 
 ably prove the existence of a rich, well-watered 
 country towards the north-west, would also seem 
 to confirm Sturt's description of the more easterly 
 region as consisting of barren spinifex plains, desti- 
 tute of water ; but then it should be remembered 
 that both Stuart and Sturt visited it at a season 
 when there was no rain, and when the intense heat 
 produced active evaporation. The future explorer 
 who shall traverse those parts at the proper period 
 of the year will doubtless be able to report of them 
 more favourably. Although it is only as it were 
 since yesterday that the interior has been penetrated, 
 yet, such is the rapidity with which tilings are
 
 A VISION OF THE FUTURE. 199 
 
 managed in that great continent, (which, not only 
 by its size, but by its population and resources, is 
 justifying its claim to the title bestowed on it by 
 the Irish emigrant, of " the fifth quarter of the 
 world/') and such is the eager demand of the sheep- 
 farmers for fresh fields and pastures, that we may 
 look before long to see the contractor and the colo- 
 nist making their appearance in Central Australia.
 
 Jplhe IEB rititin nf the Mouth. 
 
 I. THE ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 
 H. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY.
 
 grttam 0f 
 
 I. - THE ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 [OME five centuries ago a body of savages 
 in three canoes sailed to New Zealand 
 from a land which lay to the north-east. 
 A. bitter feud raged among their people, and they 
 forsook their native shores for the sake of peace. 
 " My children," said the aged patriarch of their 
 nation, when bidding them farewell, " the miseries 
 of war now drive you from your fatherland ; in 
 your new home walk not in the ways of Tu, the 
 god of battles. Live together in peace and love. So 
 ma y y u raise up a great and powerful race." * In 
 their adopted country the immigrants found beauty 
 to soothe their minds, and plenty to satisfy their 
 wants. Everything was calculated to encourage a 
 peaceful life and to wean them from violence and 
 bloodshed. The soil yielded many fruits which 
 were fit for food, the waters teemed with fish, and 
 there were swarms of wild-fowl. But no snakes 
 
 * This is the native tradition. It ii conjectured that the Xew Zealandera are of 
 Malay origin.
 
 204 THE BRITAIN OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 lurked in the jungle, no beasts of prey made their 
 lair in the forest. The exiles could not, however, 
 subdue their hereditary passions. Strife soon broke 
 out, and, as families grew into tribes, war rarely 
 ceased among them. It was during a brief interval 
 of peace that Captain Cook, the celebrated navigator, 
 visited them. He was struck with their masculine 
 vigour and sagacity They understood the cultiva- 
 tion of the ground and the navigation of the seas, 
 and their dwellings and attire bespoke a higher 
 civilization than prevailed among the other islanders 
 of the Pacific. They despised beads and trinkets, 
 and prized spades and axes. The favourable report 
 concerning New Zealand and its inhabitants which he 
 carried to Europe was neutralized by the discovery 
 of the fact that they were perpetually at war with 
 each other, and that they were given to cannibalism. 
 In the course of years, however, the terror thus 
 excited died away. English vessels could not resist 
 the temptation of touching at those verdant shores, 
 and were often glad to recruit their crews with 
 New Zealanders, who, accustomed to cruise round the 
 island in their canoes, made apt sailors. As whalers 
 the natives were especially expert and daring. They 
 excelled all others in the precision with which they 
 hurled the harpoon, and in their readiness to brave 
 dangers from which others shrank appalled. There 
 is a story told of one of them, who, having failed 
 after repeated attempts to pierce a plunging whale,
 
 OPEN WAR BETWEEN THE TWO RACES. 205 
 
 sprang upon its back, sank with it into the surging 
 waves, and, having thrust his harpoon into its side, 
 swam back again to his boat. Although capable of 
 great feats, the New Zealander was, however, restive 
 under discipline, and indisposed to regular labour. 
 One, having taken service on board of a whaler, was 
 flogged for idleness. Returning to his family, he dis- 
 played his back scarred with the stripes, and incited 
 them to revenge the indignity to which he had been 
 subjected. They persuaded the captain and crew of 
 the whaler to land, and then murdered and ate them. 
 Te Pahi, a neighbouring chief, having exerted him- 
 self to save some of the victims, saw no harm in 
 sitting down to the feast. The rumour spread that 
 he had instigated the massacre. A body of whalers 
 fell upon his village, and put himself and thirty of 
 his people to death. There was now open war for 
 several years between the two races. The New 
 Zealanders were kidnapped and murdered by the 
 white men ; and in return, when a ship was wrecked 
 upon the coast, or when a crew landed in search of 
 water or provisions, the natives invariably assassinated 
 the strangers. Kongo, a bold, resolute, and enlight- 
 ened chief, became reconciled to the English, and 
 visited our country. By his influence the hostility 
 of the islanders to Europeans was removed. A des- 
 perate civil war now ensued, in the course of which 
 immense numbers fell. The heads of the slain were 
 cut off and dried, and became the first article of export
 
 206 TUB BRITAIN OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 for which New Zealand acquired a reputation. A 
 cargo of embalmed heads was by no means an un- 
 common arrival from that quarter, till the trade was 
 prohibited by governor Darling of New South Wales. 
 A more legitimate export was found in the fine flax 
 which the country produces. 
 
 Meanwhile, English, French, and Dutch whalers 
 found it convenient to have regular stations in New 
 Zealand, and returned from their expeditions in the 
 great Southern Ocean to spend the winter there. 
 During these periods of repose and inactivity, they 
 mixed freely with the natives, and joined in the 
 festivals and dances. Not a few of them were fas- 
 cinated by the dark expressive eyes, long glossy 
 hair, and buxom figures of the native girls, and took 
 them to wife. The soft language and simple wiles 
 of these wild beauties made a deep impression on the 
 hearts of their foreign lovers, some of whom, out of 
 pure love, consented to be tatooed, and to dress and 
 live in the native fashion. The New Zealanders, 
 shrewd and thrifty, found that it was advantageous 
 to have a white man in their camp, because he could 
 make better bargains for them with traders of his 
 own complexion. The hand of the most winning of 
 their daughters, with a rich dowry of land and the 
 rank of a prince, was the usual temptation which they 
 offered to the pale face to dwell among them ; and 
 to a weather-beaten sailor tired of tossing on the seas, 
 a runaway convict from New South Wales, or a
 
 THE PAKEIIA MAORIES. 207 
 
 desponding settler, the temptation was irresistible. 
 It is said that, at one time, there was no tribe of any 
 size or dignity which did not include a European 
 as an adopted son. One can conceive the strange 
 feelings with which these men (Pakeha Maories) were 
 agitated when, once or twice a year, the dull, mono- 
 tonous round of savage life was broken, and old 
 memories were revived, by a meeting with other Euro- 
 peans, In some cases, no doubt, the man thus situated 
 sank in the scale of humanity, stifling all noble aspira- 
 tions, and approaching the level of the brute, with lower 
 pleasures and lower pains. But, as a rule, he did 
 perhaps more to raise his dark-skinned companions 
 than those to drag him down. He taught his wife 
 to sew and to cook, to appreciate the virtue of 
 cleanliness and the propriety of seemly costume. To 
 the tribe he disclosed those arts of life which are the 
 first steps in civilization. Instead of a mere hut of 
 reeds and mud, he showed them how to build a 
 house, with a stout wooden framework, with a thatched 
 roof, a chimney, and windows with shutters. Whal- 
 ing boats took the place of rude bark canoes. The 
 use of tools and fire-arms became familiar to the 
 native. Pigs, sheep, and horses, corn and potatoes, 
 were introduced. At the same time, with some of 
 the virtues, the Pakeha Maories also sowed some of 
 the vices of civilization, such as a taste for intoxi- 
 cating drinks and a passion for gambling. There 
 was but one church in Korarareka, the chief whaling
 
 208 THE BBITAIN OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 station, but grog-shops and gambling-houses abounded. 
 It was scarcely to be expected that a community 
 composed of rough whalers and sealers of different 
 nations, escaped convicts, keen and not too scrupu- 
 lous traders, and proud, suspicious savages, could 
 long remain in harmony. Frequent disputes arose, 
 and too often they were only quenched in blood. 
 Lynch law was the only rule. Every now and again 
 a fit of virtuous indignation would seize the public. 
 A victim would be selected, dipped in hot pitch, 
 rolled in feathers, and so driven from the settle- 
 ment. In the course of years, the natives became 
 so expert in the art of barter, that they no longer 
 required the services of their adopted sons. The 
 latter were therefore deprived of their state and 
 emoluments, and compelled to till the ground in order 
 to procure the means of living. Many of them joined 
 the settlement of Korarareka, which in 1839 con- 
 tained a European population of a thousand. 
 
 II. PROGRESS OF THE COLONY. 
 
 Traders and traveUers carried to England glowing 
 accounts of the advantages of New Zealand as a field 
 for colonization, its temperate climate, its fertility, 
 the excellence of its natural harbours, the intelligence 
 and skill of the natives. The English government 
 had its hands full of colonial work at the time, and 
 was not disposed to undertake the charge of a new
 
 ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS IN NEW ZEALAND. 209 
 
 plantation. It was only a fear lest it should fall 
 into the hands of the French that induced us to 
 add New Zealand to the number of our colonies. 
 In 1840, two English settlements were formed there, 
 the one at Auckland, and the other at Welling- 
 ton. Captain Hobson, the government agent, chose 
 Auckland as the site of the capital, and provided for 
 its security by a treaty of friendship and alliance 
 with the natives ; who, in return for our protection, 
 recognised the British sovereignty. The settlement 
 at Wellington was formed under the auspices of a 
 public association. Colonel Wakefield, who con- 
 ducted the first body of emigrants to the spot, pur- 
 chased from the natives a tract of country as large 
 as Ireland, for a quantity of blankets, guns, knives, 
 *!cc., nominally valued at about 9000. This motley 
 cargo also included razors and shaving tackle, Jews' 
 harps, red nightcaps, and umbrellas. By the end of 
 1840, twelve hundred emigrants had been landed 
 ;it Wellington. Two years later, there was a white 
 population in New Zealand of eleven thousand. Va- 
 rious settlements had by this time been established. 
 The settlers in the north were derived chiefly from 
 Australia, and those in the south from Great Britain. 
 Although the natives at first gave the settlers a 
 kindly reception, they were full of apprehension and 
 anger when they beheld the gradual enclosure of 
 their lands, the destruction of their forests, and the 
 conversion of their game covers into cultivated fields. 
 
 (84) i I
 
 210 THE BRITAIN OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 The possession of land was highly esteemed by them, 
 and formed, .indeed, the basis of their tribal system, 
 for the soil was common property. An individual 
 might occupy a strip of ground, but the tribe alone 
 could dispose of it. From the very outset, this 
 peculiar tenure of land led to misunderstandings and 
 quarrels between the natives and settlers. The 
 natives were quite willing to receive the gifts of the 
 new comers ; but they never imagined that, in ac- 
 cepting them, they were abandoning their hereditary 
 estates : they supposed that the English were merely 
 purchasing their friendship, and the right of encamp- 
 ing in the country. On the other hand, the settlers 
 held that as they had purchased the land by a for- 
 mal agreement in the English fashion, it was legally 
 their property. Hone Heke (or, as he was com- 
 monly called by the English, Johnny Hekey), an 
 ambitious and daring chief, roused his countrymen 
 against what he termed the aggressions of the white 
 men. He pointed out to them that their blankets 
 were in tatters, that their tobacco was all consumed, 
 that their axes were blunted with use, and that, 
 while the English gave them goods which lasted 
 only for a brief time, they claimed for themselves 
 the permanent possession of the land. To the Brit- 
 ish flag waving over the settlements the natives at- 
 tached a superstitious character, believing that it was 
 not merely the emblem, but the source of our power. 
 Accordingly, they resolved to destroy it. In March
 
 A FLOURISHING COLONY. 211 
 
 1845, Heke led a band of natives against Korarareka, 
 the oldest settlement. The sloop-of-war, and a small 
 detachment of troops which garrisoned the station, 
 were overpowered, the flag-staff was cut down, and 
 the military block-house captured. The town was 
 then pillaged, and afterwards given to the flames. 
 Most of the inhabitants sought shelter on board ship. 
 Several lives were lost, and a great amount of pro- 
 perty was destroyed. A three years' war, with 
 varying fortunes, followed. Peace was proclaimed in 
 February 1848. In 1860-1, 1863-4, and 1867-9, 
 similar wars, arising from similar causes, disturbed 
 the peaceful industry of the colony. Amicable re- 
 lations seem now to be permanently established 
 between the majority of natives and settlers. 
 
 The progress of New Zealand has of late years 
 been very rapid. Almost within a quarter of a cen- 
 tury, it was regarded as a country in the lowest and 
 most debased condition, peopled by savages who were 
 perpetually at war with each other, and who, when 
 they subdued a foe, picked his bones at a cannibal 
 feast. It is now a flourishing British colony. A 
 white population of more than eighty thousand is 
 distributed among seven settlements. Auckland, the 
 metropolis, derives a handsome revenue from the 
 forests of giant Kauri trees which surround it, and 
 from the shipping which frequents its harbour. Wel- 
 lington enjoys a magnificent harbour, and produces 
 a considerable quantity of wheat and wool. Taran-
 
 212 THE BRITAIN OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 aki (or New Plymouth) is a robust, hearty village, 
 in the midst of fields dotted with cattle, or waving 
 with yellow corn. Its beauty and fertility have 
 gained for it the attractive name of the garden of 
 New Zealand. Canterbury thrives on its vast pas- 
 toral plains; and Otago combines farming and stock 
 breeding. Hanke Bay, an offshoot of Wellington, 
 is also agricultural. Nelson draws its riches from 
 the bowels of the earth, in coal and copper. The 
 gold-fields of Otago, however, for the time eclipse 
 the less dazzling mineral wealth of Nelson. It has 
 long been known that there is gold in New Zealand, 
 but it was supposed that it did not exist in a suffi- 
 cient quantity to render the working profitable. Gold 
 was discovered some years ago at Coromandel Bay, 
 in the north, and at Massacre Bay, in the province 
 of Nelson ; but in the former case the deposit was 
 quickly exhausted ; and in the latter, although the 
 diggers have continued at work, their profits have 
 been trifling. A German professor, named Hofstet- 
 ter, who travelled through New Zealand two years 
 ago, expressed his opinion that that country pre- 
 sented all the features of a rich gold region. Since 
 the summer of 1861, several valuable discoveries 
 have confirmed that opinion ; and the gold-fields of 
 Otago now form the resort of thousands of diggers. 
 The chief deposits are found at Tuapeka, about thirty 
 miles from Tokomairio, in a series of galleries which 
 lie between the snow-capped Lammermoor hills and
 
 THE NATIVE POPULATION. 213 
 
 the dark, frowning Tapuanook mountain range. The 
 progress of the colony is illustrated by the fact, that 
 within seven years the aggregate of live stock of all 
 kinds has increased six-fold, the land under crop five- 
 fold, and the land fenced nearly eight-fold, while the 
 European population has been more than doubled. 
 
 Captain Cook estimated the native population of 
 New Zealand at three hundred thousand, and it is 
 now only seventy thousand. Although diminished 
 in number, the natives have shared in the general 
 advancement. No authenticated case of cannibalism 
 has occurred since 1844. The repugnance of the 
 New Zealanders to systematic labour has been over- 
 come, and they now devote themselves earnestly to 
 industrial pursuits. A tatooed chief may now be 
 seen, in shirt and trousers, between the handles of a 
 plough. The natives build mills, cultivate land, rear 
 cattle, fatten pigs, and know their weight to a pound, 
 and their value to a penny. They are famed as 
 horse-breakers, and almost monopolize the coasting 
 trade of the islands.* Since 1815, missionary work 
 has been carried on with eminent zeal and enthusiasm, 
 but at first with slight success. The result of twenty 
 years' labour was the conversion of only a handful of 
 natives ; but of late years Christianity has become 
 almost universal. In all parts of the country chapels 
 
 * In 1859 the native population of the Bay of Islands was 8000. They had 9000 
 acres under cultivation, owned about 1000 horses, had 200 head of cattle, and 5000 
 pigs. They had built 4 mills, and possessed 96 ploughs, owned 43 coasting vessels, 
 averaging 20 tons each, and 900 canoes. In the same year they supplied to English 
 traders no less than 46,000 bushels of wheat, of the value of 13,000.
 
 214 THE BRITAIN OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 have been erected. In almost every native village 
 the bell sometimes an old musket barrel struck with 
 a nail summons the people to prayer ; and the 
 chanting of hymns often breaks the silence of the 
 forest. In Bishop Selwyn the colony possesses a 
 noble specimen of the Christian missionary. He 
 steers his little ship from one group of islands to an- 
 other, making a wide circuit of visits every year, 
 and exposing himself to innumerable perils, from 
 which he is preserved, as the natives believe, by a 
 special grace. He thinks nothing of swimming across 
 a river when there is no ford. He can climb the 
 hills more readily, and walk further and faster, even 
 than the natives ; and they reverence the physical 
 energy which is combined with so much learning and 
 benevolence. On his tours he lodges in the native 
 huts, and thus wins the confidence of the inmates. 
 When he finds a promising youth, he carries him off 
 to be educated and trained. The parents know that 
 the good bishop will take care of then? son, and that 
 he is sincerely anxious for their welfare. Thus a 
 bond of affectionate union is created between the 
 New Zealander and the Englishman, which cannot 
 fail to insure the happiness and prosperity of the 
 colony.
 
 Jplhe <^fitpc anb j^outh 
 
 I. THE BOERS. 
 H. THE FALSE PROPHET OF THE KAFFIRS.
 
 Cape atifc jinufjr 
 
 I. THE BOERS. 
 
 fRIGINALLY founded by the Dutch in 
 1652, the colony of the Cape of Good 
 Hope was captured by the English in 
 1795, was subsequently restored to the Dutch, and 
 was finally recovered by the English in 1815. At 
 that period the bulk of the inhabitants were 
 Dutchmen, or Boers ; which is the Dutch word for 
 " peasant," or " farmer." Stock breeding was the 
 almost universal pursuit, and as the number of 
 .settlers increased, and as their flocks and herds 
 multiplied, they naturally pushed further into the 
 interior. As they advanced the natives had to give 
 place. The original inhabitants of the extreme 
 southern part of Africa were the Hottentots. These 
 are a slothful and unwarlike race, hating toil of any 
 kind, averse to cleanliness, but lively, cheerful, and 
 good-humoured. Of a soft, yielding disposition, and 
 weakened still further by being broken up into inde- 
 pendent tribes, the Hottentots could offer no effec- 
 tual resistance to the encroachments of the Dutch.
 
 218 THE CAPE AND SOUTH AfRICA. 
 
 Driving their cattle before them, they were con- 
 tinually wandering further from the Cape. But their 
 misfortunes did not end here. They were placed, 
 as it were, between two fires. At first, as the Boers 
 "trekked" inland, the Kosa Kaffirs descending 
 from the north-east moved southwards. Between 
 these two invaders the poor helpless Hottentots 
 were gradually squeezed out of their land, and 
 lived merely by sufferance on the soil which they 
 had formerly called their own. The Kaffirs and the 
 Boers were now face to face, and the latter found 
 that they had to deal with a people very different 
 from the Hottentots. Of a stalwart and command- 
 ing form, expert in war, bold, crafty, and intelligent, 
 the Kaffir (who is supposed, from various customs 
 peculiar to the Jews which he practises, to be a de- 
 scendant of Ishmael) was able to hold his ground 
 against the white man. For a time the Boers were 
 thus brought to a stand-still; but at length, pricked 
 by the necessity of providing fresh pastures for their 
 rapidly increasing herds, some of the more daring 
 settlers pushed across Sandy River, and established 
 their outposts in the fields of the Kaffirs. Seeing 
 that the Boers made so free with their land, the 
 Kaffirs thought they were entitled to some of the 
 fat kine of the usurpers. This the phlegmatic 
 Dutchmen resented, and reprisals on the one hand, 
 and fresh raids on the other, became the order of 
 the day. Once, it is said, in a fit of exasperation,
 
 DEFEAT OP THE BOERS. 219 
 
 the Boers, having invited the Amandonka, an espe- 
 cially energetic tribe of cattle-lifters, to a friendly 
 conference, shot them down wholesale while they 
 were collecting beads and toys thrown down before 
 them. But, as a rule, the settlers were too much 
 men of business, and too much in want of labour, to 
 sacrifice valuable property to mere hatred. They 
 usually enslaved any Kaffirs who fell into their 
 hands ; and as the natives were yearly at war among 
 themselves, they occasionally got a good bargain of 
 prisoners from a victorious chief. In this way they 
 collected troops of slaves, who did good service on 
 the wide stock farms. When the English acquired 
 authority in the colony in 1815, they abolished 
 slavery. The Boers, in a rage, retired beyond the 
 frontier. A large body of them, with a thousand 
 waggons, and innumerable sheep and cattle, moved 
 in successive divisions beyond the Drackenberg Moun- 
 tains, and settled in the fertile district of Natal. 
 There they established an independent government ; 
 which, of course, we refused to recognise. In a fit 
 of resentment, they endeavoured to incite some of 
 the native tribes to assail us. Upon this being dis- 
 covered, they were attacked and overcome by a 
 British force. The few who remained in Natal 
 acknowledged the British sway ; but the most of 
 them shook every atom of British dust off their 
 feet, and established themselves as a republic, to the 
 north of the Val River, on land to which we laid no
 
 220 TUB CAPE AND SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 claim. There, to this day, they remain. Their 
 hatred of England is said to be still lively : " A 
 Trans-Val Boer names the worst horse in his team 
 ' England/ and always belabours and abuses it more 
 than any other." There is, however, a number of 
 Boers within our territory, and it must in justice be 
 owned that they possess many estimable qualities. 
 They are a sober, frugal, hard-working people, and 
 generally thrive. They cling stubbornly to old 
 habits and prejudices. They despise the coloured 
 man as heartily as when their ancestors fleeing from 
 persecution in Europe first settled at the Cape. 
 They use primitive, old ploughs, which twelve stout 
 oxen find it a tough job to draw. They know no- 
 thing of a flail, and set oxen to tread out their corn, 
 in the old Jewish fashion. " In person," says Mr. 
 Cole, " they are the finest men in the colony, and 
 their strength is gigantic. They marry young, and 
 have generally large families. To the second and 
 third generation they live at the same homestead, 
 building an additional hut for each newly-wedded 
 couple. They are a very religious people, and ob- 
 serve the Sabbath with the greatest decorum, however 
 far they may be situated from church or chapel. Four 
 times a year the sacrament is administered in every 
 Dutch church in the colony. And then from far 
 and wide the waggons pour into the towns, bringing 
 families who have travelled even one hundred and 
 fifty miles to partake of the Lord's Supper."
 
 TIIE TRADER IN AFRICA. 221 
 
 The Boers confine themselves almost exclusively 
 to a pastoral life, leaving trade to the British set- 
 tlers. When we took possession of the Cape in 
 1815, the Great Fish River, which flowed between 
 the lands of the settlers and the wild bush in which 
 the Kaffirs lived, was a very troublesome frontier. 
 After an inglorious and unprofitable contest with the 
 natives, arising out of some of their cattle-stealing 
 expeditions, our government, dissatisfied with the 
 Boers, planted a number of Englishmen and Scotch- 
 men along the river. These soon fell to trading 
 with the Kaffirs, and in spite of the discourage- 
 ment of the government, a flourishing commerce 
 sprung up. The mission of the trader in Africa is 
 full of excitement and adventure. He collects a 
 quantity of coarse cloth, smart Manchester printed 
 calicoes, blankets, beads, brass curtain-rings, (which 
 serve as armlets), wide-awake hats, and snuff, for 
 the natives ; and also blankets, clothes, and pro- 
 visions for the Boers. Packing these miscellaneous 
 stores in a couple of long bulky Cape waggons, 
 each driven by twelve or fourteen oxen, and accom- 
 panied by a couple of lazy, roguish Hottentots, the 
 trader starts for the interior. As his oxen have 
 to find their food by the way-side, he moves at the 
 rate of not more than twenty or twenty-five miles 
 a day. Towards dusk he relieves the cattle from 
 the yoke, and encamps under the dark, cloudless 
 blue of the African night; and as he dozes off to
 
 222 THE CAPE AND SOOTH AFRICA. 
 
 sleep, hears, perhaps, by way of lullaby, the howl of 
 the prowling hyena, the majestic roar of the lion, or 
 the shrill trumpet of the elephant. When he reaches 
 the solitary homestead of a Boer he halts for a day 
 or two. The Boer is a cautious man, and likes to 
 examine the goods carefully before he buys them. 
 Besides, the trader full of news about the bustling 
 world, is too great a luxury to be soon parted with. 
 At first the Boer invariably declares that he is in 
 want of nothing whatever, and it is not till the 
 second or third day that he consents to purchase 
 any goods. It is, however, with the natives that 
 the trader drives the most profitable trade. They 
 pay not in money, but in kind, in elephant tusks, 
 ostrich feathers, and the skins and horns .of wild 
 beasts. With these he reloads his waggons, and, 
 retracing his steps, finds himself again at home, after 
 an absence of six or eight months. 
 
 The natives do not monopolize the supply of the 
 spoils of the chase. Many European hunters, chiefly 
 British, wage fierce war upon the beasts of the African 
 bush, and accumulate immense quantities of ivory 
 and skins. One daring sportsman in three months 
 killed seventy elephants, the tusks of which weighed 
 three thousand pounds. In the same period the 
 Boers sometimes collect as much as thirty tons of 
 ivory in a single district. Between the rifles of the 
 whites and the lassos or traps of the blacks, the 
 wild animals are gradually disappearing in Southern
 
 BRITISH KAFFRARIA. 223 
 
 Africa. The lion, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, giraffe, 
 and other large " game/' have all retreated deep into 
 the interior. It is supposed that there is not now 
 a single lion within the limits of Cape Colony ; but it 
 is still met with in the thinly settled parts of Natal 
 and in the Trans- Val country. 
 
 II. THE FALSE PROPHET OF THE KAFFIRS. 
 
 Details of the miserable wars between natives and 
 settlers, of Kaffir strategy and cunning, of dogged 
 Saxon courage and perseverance bestowed on an 
 inglorious cause of treacherous ambuscades and 
 savage reprisals, occupy a large portion of the his- 
 tory of African colonization. Into such details we 
 need not enter. It is enough to say, that between 
 1806 and 1853 we engaged in many campaigns 
 against the Kaffirs, with little honour and much loss. 
 After the defeat of the Kaffirs in 1846, the region 
 now known as British Kaffraria, whence used to 
 descend those hordes which devastated our frontier, 
 was formed into a colonial province. A considerable 
 number of the natives, however, continued to reside 
 in it. Their kraals, or villages, dotted the ridges 
 and slopes between which flowed the streams of the 
 country. The pastures, being very rich, supported 
 large flocks and herds ; and the district was, there- 
 fore, densely peopled, several kraals being always in 
 sight of each other. The military organization of
 
 224 THE CAPE AND SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 the Kaffirs was very complete. They could at any 
 moment bring into the field at least sixteen hundred 
 men, armed with spears and fire-arms, who owned 
 ready obedience to their chiefs, and were well officered. 
 For the greater part of the year the warriors lounged 
 idly about the villages, and they rarely or never 
 wandered from place to place. A small stream 
 divides British Kafir-aria from Kaffraria proper, where 
 dwelt a yet more numerous Kaffir population, who 
 could join forces with their countrymen in an in- 
 stant. Sir George Grey, the governor of the Cape, 
 saw in these facts good reason for apprehension as 
 to the safety of the colony from a destructive attack 
 by the Kaffirs. It was known that they were in a 
 restless, mischievous mood, that they outnumbered 
 the Europeans, and formed a compact body dis- 
 ciplined in war ; while, on the other hand, the colo- 
 nists were men of peace, and were scattered over a 
 large extent of country. The governor was concen- 
 trating all his resources, and urging the mother 
 country to send out more troops, when an incident 
 happened which seemingly threatened to destroy the 
 British colony, but in the most singular manner 
 proved its deliverance. 
 
 A prophet appeared among the Kaffirs, who de- 
 clared that on an appointed day, when the sun rose 
 it would wander for a time in the heavens, and 
 set again in the east. Immediately thereafter a 
 hurricane would begin to blow, which would sweep
 
 A DEEP-LAID STRATAGEM. 225 
 
 from the face of the earth all who had not believed 
 in the prophecy, and obeyed the mandates of the 
 prophet, whether Kaffirs or Europeans. Then the 
 ancestors of the Kaffirs would arise from the dead, 
 with all manner of rich goods, and countless herds of 
 cattle, nobler in proportions, sleeker in the coats, 
 and fatter in the ribs than those which had before 
 browsed upon the pastures of Kaffraria. Those 
 bounties would be lavished on the faithful, who, 
 thenceforth restored to youth and endowed with un- 
 fading strength and beauty, were to have the whale 
 land to themselves. In order to share in the bless- 
 ings of this new dispensation, however, the Kaffirs 
 (so said the prophet) must destroy all their corn and 
 cattle, and refrain from cultivating the ground until 
 the miracle had been performed. From this sweep- 
 ing condemnation of property, horses, arms, and am- 
 munition were specially exempted ; and there ap- 
 pears but little doubt that the whole affair was a 
 conspiracy between a number of the leading chiefs 
 and high priests to reduce the people to destitution 
 and desperation, in the hope that they would then 
 wage a ruthless and exterminating war against the 
 white men. At the instigation, and in some cases 
 under the menaces, of their leaders, a great many of 
 the people slaughtered all their cattle and burned 
 their grain. They then repaired the roofs and pil- 
 lars of their huts, in order that they might be strong 
 enough to withstand the anticipated hurricane. On 
 
 (84) 15
 
 226 THE CAPE AND SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 the eve of the day named by the prophet (the 1 8th 
 March 1857), they shut themselves up within 
 their huts to await the fearful events of the morrow. 
 Through chinks in the wall the rays of the morning 
 sun streaked the gloom of their squalid dwellings, 
 but they were afraid to look out to see whether the 
 great luminary was pursuing its ordinary course, or 
 staggering through the heavens. Morning wore to 
 noon without a sign of an eclipse, and without the 
 most distant rumble of a hurricane. Night fell, and 
 still the prophecy was unfulfilled. Next morning 
 the unhappy and deluded Kaffirs came out of their 
 houses, downcast, destitute, and desperate. Many 
 were real and earnest believers in the prophet, and 
 had destroyed every ox and sheep, and every grain 
 of corn which they possessed. Some of the great 
 chiefs, who used to count their hundreds of head of 
 cattle, had now not a single one left. There were 
 others who encouraged the movement in the hope 
 that it would lead to war and tumult, and who, 
 sacrificing only a portion of their stock, confided the 
 rest to the keeping of friends in a remote district. 
 About a third of the population, turning a deaf ear 
 to the commands of the prophet, preserved their 
 herds and flocks, and tilled their lands as usual. 
 Soon two parties divided the land, the believers and 
 the unbelievers, those who had destroyed their pro- 
 perty, and those who had retained it. The country 
 was covered with crowds of women and children
 
 SUBJUGATION OF THE KAFFIRS. 227 
 
 digging up wild roots for food. Several chiefs com- 
 mitted suicide in despair. Their subjects were heart- 
 broken and famishing. Two-thirds of the entire 
 people disappeared from British Kaffraria in the first 
 seven months of 1857. The population of Kaffraria 
 proper underwent even greater diminution. Upwards 
 of thirty thousand Kaffirs entered service in the 
 colony, some thousands took refuge with other tribes, 
 and some thousands perished from want. 
 
 The military organization of the Kaffirs was thus 
 broken up, and the influence of their chiefs was in a 
 large measure dissipated. Their herds and flocks 
 being gone, they had to become inured to systematic 
 labour in the fields or in the towns. It is not im- 
 probable that they will now form an important 
 element in the industrial life, and contribute largely 
 to the prosperity, of the colony. At any rate, the 
 constant menace of a native war, which formerly 
 hung like a dark storm-cloud over the settlements, 
 has passed away. 
 
 The extended exploration of Africa, and the im- 
 portant experiments which have lately been made 
 to test its productive resources, raise well-founded 
 hopes of a magnificent future for this great continent. 
 Till just the other day the vast interior remained, 
 as it had been for centuries, a hidden land, from the 
 investigation of which travellers were deterred by 
 miasma on the sea-board, and the wide tracts of 
 sandy desert which stretched further inland. If
 
 228 THE CAPE AND SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 our modern geographers did not in their maps depict 
 the heart of Africa as peopled with strange and 
 fabulous monsters, it was certainly not because they 
 knew anything more than those of old regarding its 
 soil, climate, or inhabitants. Within the last few 
 years, however, important discoveries have been 
 made. Livingstone has tracked the great river 
 Zambesi across the continent from its mouths on the 
 east coast to Loanda on the west. Burton and Speke 
 succeeded, after a journey of seven and a half months, 
 in finding, at a direct distance of 540 miles from 
 the coast, opposite to Zanzibar, a great internal lake 
 called Tanganyika, 250 miles in length, and with a 
 mean breadth of 20 miles, covering about 5000 square 
 miles with its waters. In addition to this, Speke 
 and Grant discovered the existence of another lake 
 that of Nyanza, north-east of Tanganyika the 
 area of which is supposed to be even more consider- 
 able. Further : Petherick, following the course of 
 the Nile, has reached the Mountains of the Moon, 
 and nearly connected his route with that of Speke 
 and Burton. It almost takes one's breath away to 
 hear the grand speculation which the results of these 
 journeys have suggested, that there is a connection 
 between the Nile and Lake Nyanza, so that vessels 
 of light burden may be able to pass from the Medi- 
 terranean into the veiy core of Africa, and the flags 
 of all nations float on the blue waters of the great 
 inland sea. Yet the idea is by no means so wild as
 
 RETURN OF DR. LIVINQSTONK. 229 
 
 at first it seems, and is supported by eminent scientific 
 authorities. Krapf in eastern, and Earth in northern 
 Africa have also added to our materials for mapping 
 out this enormous region, which has been justly 
 designated the continent of the future. 
 
 In the present state of our cotton supply, the 
 proved capacity of Africa to produce that valuable 
 article is of great consequence ; and is perhaps more 
 likely than anything else to stimulate the develop- 
 ment of its resources. Africa bids fair to become a 
 market in which we shall be able not only to pro- 
 cure the raw material, but dispose of the manufactured 
 goods. To the natives, Dr. Livingstone says, our 
 cotton mills are fairy dreams. They cannot conceive 
 how cloth of such fine and delicate texture can be 
 the work of machinery, or even of mortals. " How 
 can irons spin, and weave, and print so beautifully?" 
 they ask ; and an attempt to explain the process is 
 usually followed by the exclamation, " Truly ye are 
 gods!"
 
 ftratrn's Jf slanfc. 
 
 the 27th April 1789, the crew of His 
 Majesty's ship Bounty, then cruising in 
 the neighbourhood of the Friendly Islands, 
 broke out into open mutiny. In the dead of 
 night a number of the sailors entered the cabin 
 of the captain, Bligh, bound his hands behind his 
 back, and carrying him on deck, compelled him, 
 with eighteen others who would not join the con- 
 spiracy, to descend into one of the ship's boats. A 
 small quantity of bread and pork, with two or three 
 bottles of wine and spirits, were thrown after them; 
 and thus supplied, the little craft set forth on its 
 perilous voyage over the broad waters. Driven by 
 the hostility of the natives from one of the Friendly 
 Islands, where they sought to land, the unhappy 
 victims spent forty-eight days and nights on the 
 ocean, exposed to the rigour of the elements, reduced 
 during the latter part of their voyage to a quarter of 
 a pint of cocoa-nut milk, as much bread as would 
 weigh down a pistol bullet, an ounce of pork once a 
 day, and a tea-spoonful of water every eight hours.
 
 234 PITCAIRN'S ISLAND. 
 
 At the end of that period of suffering they reached 
 the Dutch station at Coupang, whence they procured 
 a passage home. When the news of this atrocious 
 outrage reached England, the frigate Pandora was 
 at once despatched to capture the mutineers. Four- 
 teen of them were seized at Tahiti, where the graves 
 of two or three others were pointed out. Of the 
 remaining nine no trace whatever could be dis- 
 covered, and the Pandora sailed away under the 
 belief that they had perished at sea or under the 
 clubs of the savages. The frigate was wrecked on 
 its homeward voyage. Four of the prisoners were 
 drowned; the remaining ten were conveyed to 
 England, where four were acquitted, three pardoned, 
 and three hung at the yard-arm. 
 
 Twenty-five years rolled by, and the occurrence 
 had almost faded from the recollection of men. In 
 1814, a couple of English men-of-war anchored off 
 a pleasant island in the Pacific, about twelve hundred 
 miles from Tahiti. Situated just beyond the tropics, 
 having a rich and luxuriant vegetation, without the 
 unhealthiness of a too luxuriant fertility, this green 
 little speck on the bosom of the ocean tempted the 
 sailors, weary of hard biscuits and salt pork, to visit 
 it in search of fresh fruits and vegetables. Their 
 surprise may be imagined, when, on approaching the 
 shore, they beheld huts peeping forth among the 
 groves. A couple of the islanders were observed to 
 run down to the beach with canoes on their backs,
 
 SOME STRANGE APPARITIONS. 235 
 
 which they launched and quickly paddled towards 
 the big ships. The sailors could hardly believe their 
 ears when they heard one of the canoe-men call out, 
 in good English, " Come, look alive there, and throw 
 us a rope." When the visitors appeared on deck, 
 they were seen to be two strapping, well-made young 
 fellows, with handsome features of an English cast, 
 but somewhat darker in complexion than the ordi- 
 nary Anglo-Saxon tint. A strip of cotton round 
 their middle, and a broad-brimmed straw hat adorned 
 with black feathers, composed their entire costume, 
 so that their muscular frames and imposing propor- 
 tions (each being about six feet in height) were dis- 
 played to full advantage. Sir Thomas Staines, the 
 captain, invited them to his table, and was much 
 touched to observe that before a morsel passed their 
 lips, they clasped their hands, bent their heads, and 
 reverently said grace. 
 
 The wonder of the English crews reached its 
 climax when, on landing, they were greeted by an 
 Englishman of venerable appearance, who disclosed 
 himself as the sole survivor of the nine mutineers of 
 the Bounty who had evaded the search of the Pan- 
 dora, and were supposed to have died. His story 
 was listened to with breathless interest. Twice re- 
 pulsed by the natives from Tahiti, the mutineers, at 
 the instigation of Fletcher Christian, their leader, 
 steered for Pitcairn's Island, of which he had read in 
 a volume of voyages which he picked up in the cap-
 
 236 PITCAIRN'S ISLAND. 
 
 tain's cabin. Scarcely five miles in circumference, 
 it looked like a great rock rising from the waves. 
 Lofty, precipitous cliffs rose from the sea on every 
 side save one, where there was a narrow fringe 
 of beach leading to a steep ascent, shaded with 
 cocoa, bread-fruit, and banana trees. Twenty-eight 
 persons disembarked from the Bounty. There were 
 nine mutineers (one having died), each with a 
 woman of Tahiti, whom he had taken to wife ; 
 and six natives of the same island, of whom three 
 were married, and one had an infant Grotesque 
 representations of the sun, moon, and other objects 
 of idolatry, graven on the rocks, several spear- 
 heads made of flint, and a few ghastly skulls which 
 were strewed about, proved that the island had 
 been inhabited before they arrived; but they found 
 no trace of any other living being than them- 
 selves. Almost one of their first acts was to destroy 
 the Bounty. Thus they cut off from themselves all 
 means of escape from their island prison. Dissolute 
 and passionate men, destitute of moral principle and 
 self-control, they soon showed that they had not 
 got rid of one authority in order to subject them- 
 selves to another. Christian tried to maintain some 
 sort of order amongst them, and for a short time 
 succeeded. Soon the Englishmen and the Tahitians 
 came to blows, and blood was shed on both sides. 
 The blacks conspired to murder the whites; but the 
 wives of the latter discovered the plot on the eve of
 
 AN INTESTINE REVOLT. 237 
 
 its execution. The result of such feuds it is not 
 difficult to conceive. In less than a year Christian 
 and four of his companions were massacred by the 
 Tahitians; who, in turn, all died violent deaths before 
 the same year closed. One of the Englishmen, with 
 perverse ingenuity, converted an old copper kettle, 
 which he had brought from the ship, into an alem- 
 bic, and distilled an intoxicating liquor from the root 
 of a plant which grew on the island. This introduced 
 a new element of misery among the unhappy settlers. 
 The man who had invented the liquor, in a fit of 
 delirium tremens flung himself from a high cliff into 
 the sea. The desperate Englishmen having no 
 Indians to abuse, quarrelled with each other, and 
 several fatal conflicts ensued. Up to the time when, 
 the English ships discovered the colony, only one of 
 the mutineers had died a natural death, and John 
 Adams was the sole survivor. Although only fifty 
 years of age, the terrible scenes in which he had taken 
 part, and the anxiety and remorse which they had 
 caused, had wrinkled his brow and blanched his hair, 
 so that he seemed quite an old man. By the widows 
 and children of his old companions he was looked up 
 to as a patriarch. He had rescued from the Bounty 
 a Bible and a book of prayers, in the perusal of 
 which he found sweet consolation in the midst of his 
 misery. He had devoted himself zealously to the 
 education of the young, read to them daily portions 
 of the Holy Writ, and taught their tongues to lisp a
 
 238 PITCAIKN'S ISLAND 
 
 prayer. He also maintained order in the island, and 
 was always resorted to for advice in difficulties or as 
 an umpire in disputes. Notwithstanding his re- 
 formed life, it was a long time before Adams ceased 
 to be disturbed by a dread of retribution for his share 
 in the mutiny. Once or twice a vessel had ap- 
 proached the island, and he and the other English- 
 men had hid themselves in caves, until their sails 
 no longer specked the waters. When Sir Thomas 
 Staines arrived, however, Adams conquered his first 
 impulse to conceal himself, and came down to the 
 beach to welcome his countrymen. 
 
 A glimpse of the condition of this singular colony, 
 when first discovered, is given by an officer of one of 
 the men-of-war: 
 
 " Their native modesty," he says, " assisted by a 
 proper sense of religion and morality, instilled into 
 their youthful minds by John Adams, had hitherto 
 preserved these interesting people pure and uncor- 
 rupted. They all labour, while young, in the culti- 
 vation of the ground; and when possessed of a 
 sufficient quantity of cleared land and of stock to 
 maintain a family, they are allowed to marry, but 
 always with the consent of Adams. The greatest 
 harmony prevails in this little society; their only 
 quarrels, and these rarely happen, being, according to 
 their own expression, ' quarrels of the mouth.' They 
 are honest in their dealings, which consist of barter- 
 ing different articles for mutual accommodation.
 
 A PASTORAL PICTURE. 23S 
 
 Their habitations are extremely neat. The little 
 village of Pitcairn forms a pretty square, the houses 
 at the upper end being occupied by the patriarch 
 Adams and his family. On the opposite side is the 
 dwelling of Thursday October Christian ; and in the 
 centre is a smooth verdant lawn on which the poultry 
 are let loose, fenced in so as to prevent the intrusion 
 of the domestic quadrupeds. Everything appeared 
 to be done according to a settled plan. In the 
 houses they had a good deal of decent furniture, 
 consisting of beds laid upon bedsteads, with neat 
 covering; they had also tables, and large chests to 
 contain their valuables and clothing, which is made 
 from the bark of a tree chiefly by the elder women. 
 Adams's house consisted of two rooms, and the win- 
 dows had shutters which were closed at night. The 
 younger women are, along with the young men, em- 
 ployed, under the direction of Adams, in the culture 
 of the ground, which produced cocoa-nuts, bananas, 
 the bread-fruit tree, yams, sweet potatoes, and tur- 
 nips. They have also plenty of hogs and goats. 
 The woods abound with a species of wild hog, and the 
 coasts of the island with several kinds of good fish. 
 Their agricultural implements are made by them- 
 selves from the iron supplied by the Bounty, which, 
 with great labour, they beat out into spades, hatchets, 
 &c. The old man kept a journal, in which was 
 entered the nature and quantity of work performed 
 by each family, what ouch had received, and what
 
 240 PITCAIRN'S ISLAND. 
 
 was due on account. Besides private property, there 
 was a general stock, out of which articles were issued 
 on credit to the several members of the community; 
 and, for mutual accommodation, exchanges of one kind 
 of provision for another were very frequent, as, salt 
 for fresh provisions, vegetables and fruit for poultry, 
 fish, &c. Also, when the stores of one family were 
 low or wholly expended, a fresh supply was raised 
 from another, or out of the general stock, to be re- 
 paid when circumstances were more favourable." 
 
 Once introduced to the knowledge of Europeans, 
 the Pitcairn islanders received frequent visits from 
 passing ships. Their primitive ideas as to dress and 
 other matters were enlarged; and they began to ex- 
 change the produce of their little farms for articles of 
 comfort and luxury. The young men might be seen 
 strutting about, one in a black swallow-tailed coat, 
 another in a shirt and trousers. Shoes and stock- 
 ings were gradually introduced, and a battered 
 beaver was occasionally donned on festivals. The 
 sale of spirits was strictly prohibited ; but tea, coffee, 
 sugar, flour, &c., were gladly received. 
 
 In the course of years this little colony multiplied 
 to such a degree that it outgrew its agricultural 
 resources. As the island could no longer afford sus- 
 tenance to its inhabitants, they sought a home else- 
 where. In 1857 they were removed, at their own 
 request, but at the expense of the British govern- 
 ment, to Norfolk Island. Here in former days was
 
 REMOVAL TO NORFOLK ISLAND. 241 
 
 located a penal settlement, of which many a tale of 
 horror is told. Where once stood the grim barrack 
 into which the wretched convicts used to be driven 
 at dusk, to prey upon each other till morning, and 
 before the grated windows of which stalked sentries 
 who had orders to fire into any room where they 
 heard a tumult, if at their bidding it did not at once 
 cease now stand the little chapel and the schools of 
 the new colonists. A congregation of the most 
 brutal criminals has given place to a community of 
 the most innocent and undepraved people in the 
 world. Thus transformed, Norfolk Island now re- 
 presents the land of which the poets have had 
 visions, 
 
 "Those happy shores, 
 
 Where none contest the fields, the woods, the streams, 
 The golden age where gold disturbs no dreams." 
 
 Norfolk Island is one thousand miles from Sydney. 
 Girdled by a coral reef, it is very difficult of ap- 
 proach; but when reached is found to be a place of 
 great beauty and fertility. It consists of a series of 
 hills curiously interwoven, crowned with magnificent 
 groves of gigantic pine, graceful palmetto, guava, 
 lemon, and fern trees. Yellow corn-fields wave by 
 the side of gardens in which grow the delicate 
 cinnamon tree, the tea and coffee shrubs, the sugar- 
 cane, the banana, and luxuriant vines. It cannot be 
 doubted that the good islanders have been fortunate 
 in exchanging Pitcairn for Norfolk Island; and it is 
 gratifying to know that their life, if not so primitive, 
 
 (84) 16
 
 242 * PITCAIRN'S ISLAND. 
 
 is as peaceful and happy as in their old home. The 
 patriarch Adams died in 1829 in his sixty-fifth year; 
 and Mrs. Young, the last survivor of those who ar- 
 rived at Pitcairn Island in the Bounty, died in 1850. 
 It remains to be seen what effect more extended 
 intercourse with the rest of the world will have on 
 this singular community. * 
 
 * Since these pages were written, a considerable number of the settlers in 
 Norfolk Island returned, with the consent of the British Government (1859), to 
 the Old Home. A recent visitor to Pitcairn's Island paints it as an oceanic 
 Arcadia.
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 [HE following particulars will enable the reader to 
 form a general idea of the extent and varied char- 
 acter of our Colonial Empire, which now comprises 
 fifty colonies, with an aggregate area of more than five mil- 
 lion square miles, and a population exceeding eleven millions, 
 about seven millions of whom are of European race : 
 
 NORTH AMEEICA. 
 
 COLONY. How OBTAINED. DATS. 
 
 THE DOMINION OF CANADA Capitulation 1760 
 
 Including /Settlement 1623 
 
 NOVA SCOTIA* < Ceded to France 1667 
 
 ( Restored 1713 
 
 NEW BRUNSWICK* Separated from Nova Scotia 1784 
 
 PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND*.. Separated from Nova Scotia 1771 
 
 NEWFOUNDLAND* Possession taken 1583 
 
 BERMUDA Settlement 1609 
 
 VANCOUVER'S IsLANDt Settlement 1792 
 
 BRITISH COLUMBIA Settlement 1858 
 
 WEST INDIES. 
 
 JAMAICA Capitulation 1655 
 
 TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS Separated from Bahamas 1848 
 
 HONDURAS Treaty 1670 
 
 BAHAMAS Settlement 1629 
 
 * United in the Dominion, 1869. t United to British Columbia. 
 
 } United to the Dominion, 1871.
 
 246 APPENDIX. 
 
 WEST INDIES Continued. 
 
 COLONY. How OBTAINED. DATB. 
 
 BARBADOES Settlement 1605 
 
 ST. VINCENT Cession 1763 
 
 GRENADA Cession 1763 
 
 TOBAGO Cession 1763 
 
 ST. LUCIA Capitulation 1803 
 
 ANTIGUA Settlement 1632 
 
 MOHTSERRAT Settlement 1632 
 
 /Settlement 1626 
 
 ST. CHRISTOPHER < Cession 1713 
 
 I Restored 1783 
 
 N f Settlement 1623 
 
 I Restored froai French 1783 
 
 VIRGIN ISLANDS Settlement 1665 
 
 DOMINICA Cession 1763 
 
 BRITISH GUIANA Capitulation 1803 
 
 TRINIDAD Capitulation 1707 
 
 MEDITERRANEAN AND AFRICAN POSSESSIONS. 
 
 GIBRALTAR Capitulation 1704 
 
 MALTA Capitulation 1800 
 
 FERNANDO Po.. Capitulation 1827 
 
 CAPE OF GOOD HOPE Capitulation 1806 
 
 NATAL Separated from Cape, Letters Patent.. .1844 
 
 /Capitulated 1600 
 
 ST. HELENA < Settlement by East India Company.... 1654 
 
 I Vested in Crown 1833 
 
 SIERRA LBONE Settlement 1787 
 
 GAMBIA Settlement 1783 
 
 GOLD COAST..., ....Settlement..., ,...1618 
 
 AUSTRALIAN COLONIES. 
 
 NEW SOUTH WALES Settlement 1788 
 
 QUEENSLAND (late Moreton i Separated fron. New South Wales) .. 
 
 Bay) I by Letters Patent ) 
 
 TASMANIA.... ....Settlement 1803
 
 APPENDIX. 247 
 
 AUSTRALIAN COLONIES- Continued. 
 
 COLOXV. How OBTAIKED. Dirm. 
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA Settlement 1834 
 
 VICTORIA. Separated from New South Wales 1837 
 
 WESTERN AUSTRALIA Settlement 1829 
 
 NEW ZEALAND Settlement (1814), and Treaty 1840 
 
 NORTH AUSTRALIA Settlement 1865 
 
 OTHER COLONIES. 
 
 MAURITIUS Capitulation 1810 
 
 CEYLON Capitulation 1795 
 
 HONG KONG AND COWLOON Treaties 1843, 1860 
 
 LABUAN Cession 1848 
 
 FALKLAND ISLAHDS Settlement 1765 
 
 HELIGOLAND Capitulation 1807 
 
 PKNANG OR PRINCE OF WALKS") ... 
 
 > Settlement 1785 
 
 ISLAND ) 
 
 DUTCH GUINEA Purchase 1871
 
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