e Pianketank, where the inhabitants were, for the
most part, absent on a hunting excursion, only a few women, children,
and old men being left to tend the corn. Returning thence the barge
encountered a tremendous thunder-storm in Gosnold's Bay, and running
before the wind, the voyagers could only catch fitful glimpses of the
land, by the flashes of lightning, which saved them from dashing to
pieces on the shore, and directed them to Point Comfort. They next
visited Chesapeake, now Elizabeth River, (on which Norfolk is situated,)
six or seven miles from the mouth of which they came upon two or three
cultivated patches and some cabins. After this they sailed seven or
eight miles up the Nansemond, and found its banks consisting mainly of
oyster-shells. Skirmishing here with the Chesapeakes and Nansemonds,
Smith procured as much corn as he could carry away. September the 7th,
1608, the party arrived at Jamestown, after an absence of upwards of
three months, and found some of the colonists recovered, others still
sick, many dead, Ratcliffe, the late president, under arrest for mutiny,
the harvest gathered, but the stock of provisions damaged by rain.

During that summer, Smith, with a few men, in a small barge, in his
several voyages of discovery traversed a distance of not less than three
thousand miles.[60:A] He had been at Jamestown only three days in three
months, and had, during this interval, explored the whole of Chesapeake
Bay and of the country lying on its shores, and made a map of them.

In the year 1607 the Plymouth Company, under the direction of Lord Chief
Justice Popham, dispatched a vessel to inspect their territory of North
Virginia. That vessel being captured by the Spaniards, Sir John Popham,
at his own expense, sent out another, which, having returned with a
favorable report of the country, he was enabled to equip an expedition
for the purpose of effecting a settlement there. Under the command of
his brother, Henry Popham, and of Raleigh Gilbert, a nephew of Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, a hundred emigrants, embarking May, 1607, in two
vessels, repaired to North Virginia, and seated themselves at the mouth
of the River Sagahadock, where they erected Fort St. George. However,
after enduring a great deal of sickness and hardship, and losing several
of their number, including their president, Henry Popham, and hearing by
a supply-vessel of the death of their chief patrons, Sir John Popham,
and Sir John Gilbert, (bro