Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/204

 line having faces carved at their tops. Between these posts the Indians danced. Some were clothed in the branches of trees thrust through their belts, some held in their hands twigs and sprays of maize; others brandished their gourds or cymlin shells, which rattled as the stones and peas that they contained struck the sides in the violent motion. These instruments were so graduated that they represented a great variety of notes, the base, the tenor, the counter tenor, mean and treble, and to their sound were added not only the voices of the performers in the ring and at the centre, at which point three Indian girls stood in loving embrace, but also the piping of recorders fashioned from reeds, and the beating of drums constructed of deep wooden platters, over the mouths of which skins had been drawn taut by a contrivance of walnuts and thongs.

The early narratives throw a very pleasant light on the great plenty in which the Indians passed their lives before the English intruded on their domain. On the second day after a landing was made in the vicinity of Cape Henry, a party sent out to explore the neighborhood came upon a fire which had been kindled by the hunters, and roasting upon the embers they found a large quantity of oysters of an excellent flavor. At Kecoughtan and Rappahannock, places visited by the voyagers on their way up the Powhatan, they were entertained with feasts that included a great variety of fruits, vegetables, fish, fowls, and wild beasts. In the first expedition to the Falls, groups of natives met Newport at every turn in the