They daily feasted upon them, and enjoyed in abundance the
peas, pumpkins, persimmons, and other vegetable treasures which the
season matured. But Smith could not be contented with a life of
inactivity, however plentifully supplied. The council had ungratefully
charged him with negligence, in not searching for the head of the
Chickahominy, and his own adventurous spirit urged him to renewed
enterprise.
He prepared his boat for a voyage, and, in a season of uncommon rigor, he
set forth upon an expedition destined to add greatly to the fame of his
already wonderful career.
The Chickahominy falls into the James not many miles above the site of
Jamestown. It flows through a very fertile region, and upon its banks
were native settlements well supplied with the stores of savage labor.
Up this stream Smith urged his boat with great perseverence, cutting
through trunks of trees and matted underwood which opposed his progress.
At length, finding the obstacles to increase, he left the boat in a broad
bay, where Indian arrows could not reach her, and, strictly forbidding
the crew to leave her, he pressed on, with two Englishmen and two
Indians, eager to penetrate with their canoe the swamps beyond them.
Hardly had he disappeared before the disobedient seamen left the boat and
sought amusement upon the shore.
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