Page:Nye's History of the USA.djvu/42

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38
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.

the start. This colony was poorly prepared to tote wood and sleep out-of-doors, as the people were all gents by birth. They had no families, but came to Virginia to obtain fortunes and return to the city of New York in September. The climate was unhealthy, and before the first autumn, says Sir William Kronk, from whom I quote, "ye greater numberr of them hade perished of a great Miserrie in the Side and for lacke of Food, for at thatte time the Crosse betweene the wilde hyena and the common hogge of the Holy Lande, and since called the Razor Backe Hogge, had not been made, and so many of the courtiers dyede."

John Smith saved the colony. He was one of the best Smiths that ever came to this country, which is as large an encomium as a man cares to travel with. He would have saved the life of Pocahontas, an Indian girl who also belonged to the gentry of their tribe, but she saw at once that it would be a point for her to save him, so after a month's rehearsal with her father as villain, with Smith's part taken by a chunk of blue-gum wood, they succeeded in getting this little curtain-raiser to perfection.

Pocahontas was afterwards married, if the author's memory does not fail him, to John Rolfe. Pocahontas was not beautiful, but many good people sprang from her. She never touched them. Her husband sprang from her also just in time.