gard to his own
exploits, that he should speak of an expedition in which he had no
command, and was even a prisoner, in this style: "I remained," and
"my men." He goes on: "Such factions here we had as commonly attend
such voyages, and a pair of gallows was made, but Captaine Smith, for
whom they were intended, could not be persuaded to use them; but not
any one of the inventors but their lives by justice fell into his
power, to determine of at his pleasure, whom with much mercy he
favored, that most basely and unjustly would have betrayed him." And
it is true that Smith, although a great romancer, was often
magnanimous, as vain men are apt to be.

King James's elaborate lack of good sense had sent the expedition to
sea with the names of the Council sealed up in a box, not to be
opened till it reached its destination. Consequently there was no
recognized authority. Smith was a young man of about twenty-eight,
vain and no doubt somewhat "bumptious," and it is easy to believe
that Wingfield and the others who felt his superior force and
realized his experience, honestly suspected him of designs against
the expedition. He was the ablest man on board, and no doubt was
aware of it. That he was not only a born commander of men, but had
the interest of the colony at heart, time was to show.

The voyagers disported themselves among the luxuries of the West
Indies. At Guadaloupe they found a bath so hot that they boiled
their pork in it as well as over the fire. At the Island of Monaca
they took from the bushes with their hands near two hogsheads full of
birds in three or four hours. These, it is useless to say, were
probably not the "barnacle geese" which the nautical travelers used
to find, and picture growing upon bushes and dropping from the eggs,
when they were ripe, full-fledged into the water. The beasts were
fearless of men. Wild birds and natives had to learn the whites
before they feared them.

"In Mevis, Mona, and the Virgin Isles," says the "General Historie,"
"we spent some time, where with a lothsome beast like a crocodile,
called a gwayn [guana], tortoises, pellicans, parrots, and fishes, we
feasted daily."

Thence they made sail-in search of Virginia, but the mariners lost
their reckoning for three days and made no land; the crews were
discomfited, and Captain Ratcliffe, of the pinnace, wanted to up helm
and return to England. But a violent storm, which obliged them "to
hull all night," drove them to the po