habitants came in crowds with frightful howlings, and hellish ceremonies, conjuring him to declare whether he intended them good or ill. After this they brought him a bag of gunpowder, and desired to know what kind of grain it was; for they judged it to be the produce of the earth, and carefully preserved it to plant the next spring.

At length, Captain Smith, was conducted to Werowocomoco, where Powhatan, the Emperor lived in savage state and magnificence. When Smith was brought into the presence of Powhatan, he was sitting upon a wooden throne resembling a bedstead, cloathed with a flowing robe of racoon skins, and wearing on his head a coronet of feathers. He was about sixty years of age, somewhat hoary, and of a mien that impressed every beholder with awe. On each side of him sat a young squaw, who practised every endearing softness of her sex, and contended for the caresses of her venerable Sovereign. It was ludicrous to behold the bald-headed letcher relax from his ferocity, and, waxing wanton, pinch the cheek of the damsel who most conciliated him.

When Smith entered the royal Wigwam, the whole Court gave a shout; and the Queen of Appamattox was appointed to carry him water to wash, while one of the concubines left the throne, and brought him a bunch of feathers instead of a towel to dry himself.

Hence Smith was received more like a guest than a prisoner; and, after an abundant supper, a skin was spread for him to sleep

upon.

During the night a centinel was placed at each corner of the royal Wigwam, who every half hour was heard to shout; shaking his finger between his lips to give more horror to the sound. If there was any one found remiss in making this clamour, the Captain of the watch immediately took a cudgel and beat him over the head and shoulders till he roared with anguish.

The person of Smith was extremely prepossessing; to a figure comely from nature was superadded that external grace which he had acquired in the court and the camp of Great Britain; and several ladies of distinguished rank had heaped upon him unequivocal marks of their tenderness. The influence of the passions is uniform, and their effects nearly the same in every human breast; hence love operates in the same manner throughout the world, and discovers itself by the same symptoms in the breasts of beings separated by an immeasurable ocean. When Smith appeared before Powhatan, the first impression he made decided favourably for him on the minds of the women. This his knowledge of the sex soon discovered; but his attention was principally attracted by the charms of a young

girl, whose looks emanated from a heart that was the seat of every tenderness, and who could not conceal those soft emotions of which the female bosom is so susceptible. It is in vain to attempt opposing the inroads of the blind god; the path of love is a path to which there is no end; in which there is no remedy for lovers but to give up their souls.

This young girl was the daughter of the Emperor Powhatan. She was called Pocahontas; and when Smith was engaged by the interrogations of the King, and she thought herself unobserved, never did the moon gaze more steadfastly on the water than she on the prisoner.

The next day a long and profound consultation was held by the King and his Privy Council, when a huge stone was brought before Powhatan, and several men assembled with clubs in their hands. The lamentations of the women admonished Smith of his destiny; who being brought blindfolded to the spot, his head was laid on the block, and the men prepared with their clubs to beat out his brains. The women now became more bitter in their lamentations over the victim; but the savage Monarch was inexorable, and the executioners were lifting their arms to perform the office of death, when Pocahontas ran with mournful distraction to the stone, and getting the victim's head into her arms, laid her own

upon it to receive the blow. Fair spirit! thou ministering angel at the throne of grace! If souls disengaged from their earthly bondage can witness from the bosom of eternal light what is passing here below, accept, sweet Seraph, this tribute to thy humanity.

Powhatan was not wanting in paternal feeling; his soul was devoted to his daughter Pocahontas; and so much did his ferocity relent at this display of innocent softness in a girl of fourteen, that he pronounced the prisoner's pardon, and dismissed the executioners. Indeed, every heart melted into tenderness at the scene. The joy of the successful mediator expressed itself in silence; she hung wildly on the neck of the reprieved victim, weeping with a violence that choaked her

utterance.

The breast of Smith did not yield to this act of female softness and humanity; it excited an emotion of gratitude, but it kindled no passion in his heart. Formed for action and enterprize, he considered love an imbecility unworthy of a great mind; and although his person could inspire tender sentiments, his mind was not ductile to them. His penetration, however, foresaw the uses to which the passion of Pocahontas for him might be converted; and his solicitude for the success of the Colony, which was much nearer his heart, made him feign a return of that fondness

which every day augmented in the bosom of the Princess.

It was the custom of Powhatan when he was weary of his women, to bestow them among those of his courtiers who had ingratiated themselves into his favour; nor could his servants be more honoured than by this mark of his esteem.

Powhatan had conceived a very high predilection for Captain Smith. He caused his person to be adorned with a robe of racoon skins, similar to that which he wore himself; and when he was glutted with the possession of the two women, who sat at his throne, he signified it to be his royal pleasure to consign one of them to his guest.

No sooner did this intelligence reach the ears of the squaws, than a bitter controversy took place between them respecting which of the two was the more worthy of pre-eminence. Jealousy cannot like other passions be restrained by modesty or prudence; a vent it will have; and soon it burst forth from these women with the impetuosity of a torrent. They had neither nails, nor fingers enough to scratch with; nor a volubility of tongue sufficient to deliver the abuse that laboured with convulsive throes to come forth from their bosoms.

At length, Powhatan separated the combatants, and told Smith to make his choice.