d where the James,
broadest of all the rivers of the "Old Dominion," rolls its glittering
waters toward the sea, there lived, years ago, a notable race of men.

For generations they had held the land, and, though their clothing was
scanty and their customs odd, they possessed many of the elements
of character that are esteemed noble, and, had they been left to
themselves, they might have progressed--so people who have studied into
their character now believe--into a fairly advanced stage of what is
known as barbaric civilization.

They lived in long, low houses of bark and boughs, each house large
enough to accommodate, perhaps, from eighty to a hundred persons--twenty
families to a house. These "long houses" were, therefore, much the same
in purpose as are the tenement-houses of to-day, save that the tenements
of that far-off time were all on the same floor and were open closets
or stalls, about eight feet wide, furnished with bunks built against
the wall and spread with deer-skin robes for comfort and covering.
These "flats" or stalls were arranged on either side of a broad, central
passage-way, and in this passage-way, at equal distances apart, fire
pits were constructed, the heat from which would warm the bodies and
cook the dinners of the occupants of the "long house," each fire serving
the purpose of four tenements or families.

In their mode of life these people--tall, well-made, attractive, and
coppery-colored folk--were what is now termed communists, that is, they
lived from common stores and had all an equal share in the land and
its yield--the products of their vegetable gardens, their hunting and
fishing expeditions, their home labors, and their household goods.

Their method of government was entirely democratic. No one, in any
household, was better off or of higher rank than his brothers or
sisters. Their chiefs were simply men (and sometimes women) who had been
raised to leadership by the desire and vote of their associates, but who
possessed no special authority or power, except such as was allowed
them by the general consent of their comrades, in view of their wisdom,
bravery, or ability. They lived, in fact, as one great family bound
in close association by their habits of life and their family
relationships, and they knew no such unnatural distinction as king or
subject, lord or vassal.

Around their long bark tenements, stretched carefully cultivated fields
of corn and pumpkins, the trailing bea