They labored on until they had nothing for sustenance except
two dogs of the mastiff species and the sassafras leaves which grew in
great abundance around them. Upon this inviting fare they were fain to
nourish their bodies, while their souls were fed upon the hope of
finally entering this region of pearls; but at length, in a state near
to starvation, they returned to Roanoke, having made no discovery even
so valuable as a copper spring high up the Chowan River, concerning
which the Indians had excited their hopes.
Thomas Heriot employed his time in researches more rational than those
which sought for pearls amid the wilderness of America. He intermingled
freely with the Indian tribes, studied their habits, their manners,
their language, and origin. He sought to teach them a theology more
exalted than the fancies of their singular superstition, and to expand
their minds by a display of the instruments of European science. He
acquired a vast fund of information as to the state of the original
country, its people and its products, and to his labors we may yet be
indebted in the progress of this narrative.
But we have reason to believe that a great part of the colonists
contributed nothing to the success of the scheme, and did much to render
it fruitless. The natives, who had received the first adventurers with
unsuspecting hospitality, were now estranged by the certain prospect of
seeing their provisions taken away and their homes wrested from them by
civilized pretenders.
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