and shooting
at them. The next day a crowd came dancing to the shore, making friendly
signs, but Smith, suspecting villainy, discharged his muskets into them.
Landing toward evening, the explorers found many baskets and much blood,
but no savages. The following day, savages to the number, the account
wildly says, of two or three thousand, came to visit them, and were very
friendly. These tribes Smith calls the Sarapinagh, Nause, Arseek, and
Nantaquak, and says they are the best merchants of that coast. They told
him of a great nation, called the Massawomeks, of whom he set out in
search, passing by the Limbo, and coasting the west side of Chesapeake
Bay. The people on the east side he describes as of small stature.

They anchored at night at a place called Richard's Cliffs, north of
the Pawtuxet, and from thence went on till they reached the first
river navigable for ships, which they named the Bolus, and which by its
position on Smith's map may be the Severn or the Patapsco.

The men now, having been kept at the oars ten days, tossed about by
storms, and with nothing to eat but bread rotten from the wet, supposed
that the Captain would turn about and go home. But he reminded them
how the company of Ralph Lane, in like circumstances, importuned him to
proceed with the discovery of Moratico, alleging that they had yet a dog
that boiled with sassafrks leaves would richly feed them. He could not
think of returning yet, for they were scarce able to say where they had
been, nor had yet heard of what they were sent to seek. He exhorted them
to abandon their childish fear of being lost in these unknown, large
waters, but he assured them that return he would not, till he had seen
the Massawomeks and found the Patowomek.

On the 16th of June they discovered the River Patowomek (Potomac), seven
miles broad at the mouth, up which they sailed thirty miles before
they encountered any inhabitants. Four savages at length appeared and
conducted them up a creek where were three or four thousand in ambush,
"so strangely painted, grimed, and disguised, shouting, yelling,
and crying as so many spirits from hell could not have showed more
terrible." But the discharge of the firearms and the echo in the forest
so appeased their fury that they threw down their bows, exchanged
hostages, and kindly used the strangers. The Indians told him that
Powhatan had commanded them to betray them, and the serious charge is
added that Powhatan, "so direc