could, that we might enjoy his
company on our return from Pamaunke."

It should be added, however, that there is an allusion to some warning
by Pocahontas in the last chapter of the "Oxford Tract." But the full
story of the night visit and the streaming tears as we have given it
seems without doubt to have been elaborated from very slight materials.
And the subsequent insertion of the name of Pocahontas--of which we have
given examples above--into old accounts that had no allusion to her,
adds new and strong presumptions to the belief that Smith invented what
is known as the Pocahontas legend.

As a mere literary criticism on Smith's writings, it would appear that
he had a habit of transferring to his own career notable incidents and
adventures of which he had read, and this is somewhat damaging to an
estimate of his originality. His wonderful system of telegraphy by means
of torches, which he says he put in practice at the siege of Olympack,
and which he describes as if it were his own invention, he had doubtless
read in Polybius, and it seemed a good thing to introduce into his
narrative.

He was (it must also be noted) the second white man whose life was saved
by an Indian princess in America, who subsequently warned her favorite
of a plot to kill him. In 1528 Pamphilo de Narvaes landed at Tampa Bay,
Florida, and made a disastrous expedition into the interior. Among the
Spaniards who were missing as a result of this excursion was a soldier
named Juan Ortiz. When De Soto marched into the same country in 1539 he
encountered this soldier, who had been held in captivity by the Indians
and had learned their language. The story that Ortiz told was this:
He was taken prisoner by the chief Ucita, bound hand and foot, and
stretched upon a scaffold to be roasted, when, just as the flames were
seizing him, a daughter of the chief interposed in his behalf, and
upon her prayers Ucita spared the life of the prisoner. Three years
afterward, when there was danger that Ortiz would be sacrificed to
appease the devil, the princess came to him, warned him of his danger,
and led him secretly and alone in the night to the camp of a chieftain
who protected him.

This narrative was in print before Smith wrote, and as he was fond
of such adventures he may have read it. The incidents are curiously
parallel. And all the comment needed upon it is that Smith seems to have
been peculiarly subject to such coincidences.

Our author's selectio