The Complete Writings-3 [108]
accounts of all our historians, is not, it is with confidence affirmed, surpassed by any in the whole range of history; and for those qualities more especially which do honor to our nature- -an humane and feeling heart, an ardor and unshaken constancy in her attachments--she stands almost without a rival.
"At the first appearance of the Europeans her young heart was impressed with admiration of the persons and manners of the strangers; but it is not during their prosperity that she displays her attachment. She is not influenced by awe of their greatness, or fear of their resentment, in the assistance she affords them. It was during their severest distresses, when their most celebrated chief was a captive in their hands, and was dragged through the country as a spectacle for the sport and derision of their people, that she places herself between him and destruction.
"The spectacle of Pocahontas in an attitude of entreaty, with her hair loose, and her eyes streaming with tears, supplicating with her enraged father for the life of Captain Smith when he was about to crush the head of his prostrate victim with a club, is a situation equal to the genius of Raphael. And when the royal savage directs his ferocious glance for a moment from his victim to reprove his weeping daughter, when softened by her distress his eye loses its fierceness, and he gives his captive to her tears, the painter will discover a new occasion for exercising his talents."
The painters have availed themselves of this opportunity. In one picture Smith is represented stiffly extended on the greensward (of the woods), his head resting on a stone, appropriately clothed in a dresscoat, knee-breeches, and silk stockings; while Powhatan and the other savages stand ready for murder, in full-dress parade costume; and Pocahontas, a full-grown woman, with long, disheveled hair, in the sentimental dress and attitude of a Letitia E. Landon of the period, is about to cast herself upon the imperiled and well-dressed Captain.
Must we, then, give up the legend altogether, on account of the exaggerations that have grown up about it, our suspicion of the creative memory of Smith, and the lack of all contemporary allusion to it? It is a pity to destroy any pleasing story of the past, and especially to discharge our hard struggle for a foothold on this continent of the few elements of romance. If we can find no evidence of its truth that stands the test of fair criticism, we may at least believe that it had some slight basis on which to rest. It is not at all improbable that Pocahontas, who was at that time a precocious maid of perhaps twelve or thirteen years of age (although Smith mentions her as a child of ten years old when she came to the camp after his release), was touched with compassion for the captive, and did influence her father to treat him kindly.
IX
SMITH'S WAY WITH THE INDIANS
As we are not endeavoring to write the early history of Virginia, but only to trace Smith's share in it, we proceed with his exploits after the arrival of the first supply, consisting of near a hundred men, in two ships, one commanded by Captain Newport and the other by Captain Francis Nelson. The latter, when in sight of Cape Henry, was driven by a storm back to the West Indies, and did not arrive at James River with his vessel, the Phoenix, till after the departure of Newport for England with his load of "golddust," and Master Wingfield and Captain Arthur.
In his "True Relation," Smith gives some account of his exploration of the Pamunkey River, which he sometimes calls the "Youghtamand," upon which, where the water is salt, is the town of Werowocomoco. It can serve no purpose in elucidating the character of our hero to attempt to identify all the places he visited.
It was at Werowocomoco that Smith observed certain conjurations of the medicine men, which he supposed had reference to his fate. From ten o'clock in the morning till six at night, seven of the savages, with rattles in their hands, sang and danced about the fire, laying down grains
"At the first appearance of the Europeans her young heart was impressed with admiration of the persons and manners of the strangers; but it is not during their prosperity that she displays her attachment. She is not influenced by awe of their greatness, or fear of their resentment, in the assistance she affords them. It was during their severest distresses, when their most celebrated chief was a captive in their hands, and was dragged through the country as a spectacle for the sport and derision of their people, that she places herself between him and destruction.
"The spectacle of Pocahontas in an attitude of entreaty, with her hair loose, and her eyes streaming with tears, supplicating with her enraged father for the life of Captain Smith when he was about to crush the head of his prostrate victim with a club, is a situation equal to the genius of Raphael. And when the royal savage directs his ferocious glance for a moment from his victim to reprove his weeping daughter, when softened by her distress his eye loses its fierceness, and he gives his captive to her tears, the painter will discover a new occasion for exercising his talents."
The painters have availed themselves of this opportunity. In one picture Smith is represented stiffly extended on the greensward (of the woods), his head resting on a stone, appropriately clothed in a dresscoat, knee-breeches, and silk stockings; while Powhatan and the other savages stand ready for murder, in full-dress parade costume; and Pocahontas, a full-grown woman, with long, disheveled hair, in the sentimental dress and attitude of a Letitia E. Landon of the period, is about to cast herself upon the imperiled and well-dressed Captain.
Must we, then, give up the legend altogether, on account of the exaggerations that have grown up about it, our suspicion of the creative memory of Smith, and the lack of all contemporary allusion to it? It is a pity to destroy any pleasing story of the past, and especially to discharge our hard struggle for a foothold on this continent of the few elements of romance. If we can find no evidence of its truth that stands the test of fair criticism, we may at least believe that it had some slight basis on which to rest. It is not at all improbable that Pocahontas, who was at that time a precocious maid of perhaps twelve or thirteen years of age (although Smith mentions her as a child of ten years old when she came to the camp after his release), was touched with compassion for the captive, and did influence her father to treat him kindly.
IX
SMITH'S WAY WITH THE INDIANS
As we are not endeavoring to write the early history of Virginia, but only to trace Smith's share in it, we proceed with his exploits after the arrival of the first supply, consisting of near a hundred men, in two ships, one commanded by Captain Newport and the other by Captain Francis Nelson. The latter, when in sight of Cape Henry, was driven by a storm back to the West Indies, and did not arrive at James River with his vessel, the Phoenix, till after the departure of Newport for England with his load of "golddust," and Master Wingfield and Captain Arthur.
In his "True Relation," Smith gives some account of his exploration of the Pamunkey River, which he sometimes calls the "Youghtamand," upon which, where the water is salt, is the town of Werowocomoco. It can serve no purpose in elucidating the character of our hero to attempt to identify all the places he visited.
It was at Werowocomoco that Smith observed certain conjurations of the medicine men, which he supposed had reference to his fate. From ten o'clock in the morning till six at night, seven of the savages, with rattles in their hands, sang and danced about the fire, laying down grains