try
savages."

"And what may wampum be?" asked Verrazzano coolly.

"'T is the stuff they use for money--bits of shell made into beads and
strung into a belt. There is an island in this bay where they make it
out of their shell-fish middens--two kinds--purple and white. On my
word, this big chief has on a wampum belt now!"

This was interesting information indeed, and the natives seemed prepared
to traffic in all peace and friendliness. Verrazzano found upon
investigation that on the north of this bay a very large river, deep at
the mouth, came down between steep hills. Afterward, following the shore
to the east, he discovered a fine harbor beyond a three-cornered island.
Here he met two chiefs of that country, a man of about forty, and a
young fellow of twenty-four, dressed in quaintly decorated deerskin
mantles, with chains set with colored stones about their necks. He
stayed two weeks, refitting the ship with provisions and other
necessaries, and observing the place. The crew got by trading and as
gifts the beans and corn cultivated by the people, wild fruits and nuts,
and furs. Further north they found the tribes less friendly, and at last
came so near the end of their provision that Verrazzano decided to
return to France. He reached home July 8, 1524, after having sailed
along seven hundred leagues of the Atlantic coast.

[Illustration: "The natives seemed prepared to traffic in all peace and
friendliness"--_Page_ 132]

Francis I. was in the thick of a disastrous war with Spain, and had not
time just then to consider further explorations. The war was not fairly
over when a Cadiz warship, in 1527, caught Verrazzano and hanged him as
a pirate.

NOTE

The not unnatural conclusion of Verrazzano that what he saw was an ocean
or a great inland sea led to extraordinary misconceptions in the maps
and charts of the time. It was not until the early part of the
seventeenth century that the region was actually explored, by Newport
and Smith, and found to be only Chesapeake Bay.

THE DRUM

I wake the gods with my sullen boom--
I am the Drum!
They wait for the blood-red flowers that bloom
In the heart of the sacrifice, there in the gloom
With terror dumb--
I sound the call to his dreadful doom--
I am the Drum!

I was the Serpent, the Sacred Snake--
Wolf, bear and fox
By the silent shores of river and lake
Tread softly, listening lest they wake