irections to construct houses and fortifications. The settlers, working
with new life and vigor in the more wholesome air of the upper James,
soon rendered the place almost impregnable to attack from the Indians.
They cut a ditch across the narrow neck of the peninsula, and fortified
it with high palisades. To prevent a sudden raid by the savages in
canoes from the other shore, five strong block houses were built at
intervals along the river bank. Behind these defenses were erected a
number of substantial houses, with foundations of brick and frame
superstructures. Soon a town of three streets had been completed, more
commodious and far more healthful than Jamestown.[91]

When this work had been completed, Dale led a force of men across to the
south bank of the river and took possession of the entire peninsula
lying between the Appomattox and the James. An Indian settlement just
below Turkey Island bend was attacked and destroyed, and the savages
driven away. The English built a palisade over two miles long and
reinforced at intervals with forts and block houses, from the James at
Henrico to the falls of the Appomattox. These fortifications secured
from the attacks of the savages "many miles of champion and woodland",
and made it possible for the English to lay out in safety several new
plantations or hundreds. Dale named the place Bermuda, "by reason of the
strength of the situation".

Here, for the first time, something like prosperity came to the colony.
Although the "sicknesse" was not entirely eliminated even at Henrico,
the percentage of mortality was greatly reduced. Soon there were in
Virginia several hundred persons that had lived through the fatal months
of June, July and August and were thoroughly "seasoned" or immune to the
native disorders. Not until 1618, when the settlers, in their greed for
land suitable for the cultivation of tobacco, deserted their homes on
the upper James for the marshy ground of the lower country, and new,
unacclimated persons began arriving in great numbers, did the pestilence
again assume its former proportions.

Thus protected from the ravages of disease and from the assaults of the
savages, Dale's men were able to turn their attention to the cultivation
of the soil. Soon they were producing an annual crop of corn sufficient
to supply their more pressing needs. And it was well for them that they
could become, to some extent, independent of England, for the London
Company, at las