Lord Turbisha, to divert the ladies, would fight any single captain of the Christian troops.

The honor of accepting this challenge, being determined by lot, fell on Captain Smith, who, meeting his antagonist on horseback, within view of the ladies on the battlements, at the sound of music began the encounter, and in a short time killed him, and bore away his head in triumph to his general, the Lord Moyzes.

The death of the chief so irritated his friend Crualgo, that he sent a particular challenge to the conqueror, who, meeting him with the same ceremonies, after a smart combat, took off his head also.

Smith then in his turn sent a message into the town, informing the ladies that if they wished for more diversion, they should be welcome to his head in case their third champion could take it.

The challenge was accepted by Bonamalgro, who unhorsed Smith, and was near gaining the victory; but remounting in a critical moment, he gave the Turk a stroke with his falchion which brought him to the ground, and his head was added to the number.

For these singular exploits he was honored with a military procession, consisting of six thousand men, three led horses, and the Turks' heads on the points of their lances. With this ceremony Smith was conducted to the pavilion of his general, who, after embracing him, presented him with a horse richly furnished, a scymetar and belt worth three hundred ducats, and a commission to be major in his regiment.

The Prince of Transylvania, after the capture of the place, made him a present of his picture set in gold, and a pension of three hundred ducats per annum, and moreover granted him a coat of arms, bearing three Turks' heads in a shield.

The patent was admitted and received in the college of heralds in England, by Sir Henry Segar, garter king at arms. Smith was always proud of this distinguished honor, and these arms are accordingly blazoned in the frontispiece to his history, with this motto, "Vincere est vivere.".

After this, the Transylvanian army was defeated by a body of Turks and Tartars near Rotention, and many brave men were slain, among whom were nine English and Scots officers, who, after the fashion of that day, had entered into this service from a religious zeal to drive the Turks out of Christendom.

Smith was wounded in this battle, and lay among the dead. His habit discovered him to the victors as a person of consequence; they used him well till his wounds were healed, and then sold him to the Basha Bogul, who sent him as a present to his mistress, Tragabigzanda, at Constantinople, accompanied with a message as full of vanity as void of truth, that he had conquered a Bohemian nobleman and presented him to her as a slave.

The present proved more acceptable to the lady than her lord intended. She could speak Italian, and Smith in that language not ⚫ only informed her of his country and quality, but conversed with her in so pleasing a manner as to gain her affections. The connection

proved so tender, that to secure him for herself, and to prevent his being ill-used, she sent him to her brother, the bashaw of Nalbraitz, in the country of the Cambrian Tartars on the borders of the sea of Azoph. Her pretence was, that he should there learn the manners and language, as well as religion of the Tartars.

By the terms in which she wrote to her brother, he suspected her design, and resolved to disappoint her. Within an hour after Smith's arrival he was stripped, his head and beard were shaven, an iron collar was put about his neck, he was clothed with a coat of hair-cloth, and driven to labor among the Christian slaves.

He had now no hope of redemption, but from the love of his mistress, who was at a great distance, and not likely to be informed of his misfortunes. The hopeless condition of his fellow slaves could not alleviate his despondency.

In the depth of his distress an opportunity presented for an escape, which to a person of a less courageous and adventurous spirit would have been an aggravation of misery. He was employed in threshing at a grange in a large field, about a league from the house of his ty rant, who in his daily visits treated him with abusive language, accompanied with blows and kicks.

This was more than Smith could bear; wherefore watching an opportunity, when no other person was present, he levelled a stroke at him with his threshing instrument, which despatched him.

Then hiding his body in the straw, and shutting the door, he filled a bag with grain, mounted the bashaw's horse, and betaking himself to the desert, wandered for two or three days ignorant of the way, and so fortunate as not to meet with a single person who might give information of his flight.

At length he came to a post erected in a cross road, by the marks on which he found his way to Muscovy, and in sixteen days he arrived at Exapolis, on the river Don, where was a Russian garrison, the commander of which, understanding that he was a Christian, received him courteously, took off his iron collar, and gave him letters to the other governors in that region.

Thus he travelled through part of Russia and Poland, till he got back to his friends in Transylvania, receiving presents in his way from many persons of distinction, among whom he particularly mentions a charitable lady, Callamata, being always proud of his connection with that sex, and fond of acknowledging their favors. At Leipsic he met with his colonel, Count Meldrich, and Sigismund, prince of Transyl. vania, who gave him one thousand five hundred ducats to repair his losses.

With this money he was enabled to travel through Germany, France, and Spain, and having visited the kingdom of Morocco, he returned by sea to England, having in his passage enjoyed the pleasure of another naval engagement.

At his arrival in his native country, he had a thousand ducats in his purse, which, with the interest he had remaining in England, he devoted to seek adventures and make discoveries in North America.

Reader, if thou hast perused the preceding sketch of the life of Captain Smith, pause one moment and reflect that all that is here recorded he performed, passed through, and suffered, before he came to the wild shores of the new world. And that here he entered upon a new field of enterprise, and of suffering, and of daring, not less remarkable than the scenes which had already given such wonderful interest to his eventful life. Follow him to the wilderness of Virginia, and witness the toils and struggles he went through to plant the first European settlement in these States. Behold him the guardian spirit of the little colony, in repeated instances and in various ways protecting it by his single arm from utter destruction. When the colony was sinking under famine, the energy and activity of Smith always brought them food; when beset by the subtle and ferocious tribes around them, the courage and skill of Smith never failed to prove a safe and suffi cient shield for their protection. When traitors among them sought to rob and abandon the colony, they were detected by his penetration and punished by his power. It mattered not what nominal rank he held in the colony, whether vested with office or filling only the humble post of a private individual, it was to him that all eyes were turned in times of difficulty and danger, and it was his name alone that struck terror to the hearts of the hostile savages.

With a dozen men in an open boat, he performs a voyage of a thousand miles, surveying the shores of the great Chesapeake Bay, and exploring its noble tributary streams, with thousands of the wild sons of the forest ready to meet him at every turn. When, in the cabin of the powerful chief Opechancanough, five hundred warriors, armed with bow and club, surrounded him with a determination to seize him and put him to death, who but Captain John Smith would have extricated himself from his perilous situation? Nothing daunted, he seized the giant chieftain by the hair of his head with one hand, held a pistol to his breast with the other, and led him out trembling among his people, and made them throw down their arms.

In short, for romantic adventure, "hair-breadth escapes," the sublimity of courage, high and honorable feeling, and true worth of character, the history of the world may be challenged to produce a parallel to Captain John Smith, the founder of Virginia.

CHAPTER X.

SUMMARY ACCOUNT OF THE FIVE NATIONS-ANECDOTES OF THE ONANDAGA CHIEF, GARANGULA-HISTORY OF THE FIVE NATIONS CONTINUED TO THE TIME OF ADARIO-ADVENTURES OF BLACK-KETTLE.

Having concluded our notices of the most eminent Indians of New England, it now becomes proper, following merely the progress of history, to turn our attention to another section of country, and to a

tion was issued, forbidding the colonists either to parley or trade with the Indians.

This truce or treaty was understood to be on both sides a temporary expedient; but the chieftain was the first to take advantage of it. During nine years he remained quietly making his preparations for the conflict which his sagacity told him must some day or other be renewed. The hour at length arrived. The colony was involved in dissensions. Insurrections had taken place. The governor was unpopular, and the people were unprepared and heedless. Opechancanough lost not a moment in concerting measures for effecting at a single blow the bloody, but in his bosom noble design, which had already engrossed the solicitude and labor of so large a part of his life.

He was now advanced in years, but his orders were conveyed with electric rapidity to the remotest tribes of the great confederacy associated under his influence. With the five nearest his own location, and most completely under his control, he resolved to make the principal onset in person. The more distant stations were assigned to the leading chiefs of the several nations; and thus the system of a war that raged from the mouth of the Chesapeake to the heads of all the great rivers, which flow into it, was so simple as to render confusion impossible. The whole force was let loose upon the entire line of the English settlements at nearly the same instant of time. Five hundred persons perished in the massacre. Many others were carried into captivity. The habitations, corn, household utensils, instruments of farming, every thing essential to comfort, and almost every thing necessary to life, was consumed by fire. But for circumstances in the situation of the settlements, over which Opechancanough had no control, and which he could not guard against, the fate of Virginia had been decided by this single blow.

As it was, every other labor and thought were suspended in the terrors of an Indian war. The loom was abandoned. The plough was left in its furrow. All who were able to bear arms were embodied as a militia for the defence of the colony; and a chosen body, comprising every twentieth man, marched into the enemy's country under Governor Berkeley's personal command. The operations of the war, which raged thenceforth without any intermission until the death of Opechancanough-and that alone was expected to end it--are detailed by no historian. The early Virginian records which remain in manuscript are altogether silent respecting this period, and the meagre relation of Beverley is the only chronicle which has survived the ravages of time. This circumstance of itself sufficiently indicates the confusion and dismay of the era.

Opechancanough, whose last scene now rapidly approaches, had become so decrepid by age, as to be unable to walk, though his spirit, rising above the ruins of his body, directed, from the litter upon which his Indians carried him, the onset and the retreat of his warriors. The wreck of his constitution was at length completed by the extreme fatigues encountered in this difficult and laborious service. His flesh became macerated; his sinews lost their elasticity; and his eyelids

were so heavy that he could not see, unless they were lifted up by his faithful attendants. In this forlorn condition he was closely pursued by Berkeley with a squadron of horse, and at length surprised and taken. He entered Jamestown for the first time in his life, as the most conspicuous figure in the conqueror's triumph.

To the honor of the English, they treated their distinguished captive with the tenderness which his infirmities demanded, and the respect which his appearance and talents inspired. They saw the object of their terror bending under the load of years, and shattered by the hardships of war; and they generously resolved to bury the remembrance of their injuries in his present melancholy reverse of fortune. His own deportment was suitable to his former glory, and the principles of an Indian hero. He disdained to utter complaint or to manifest uneasiness. He believed that tortures were preparing for him; but instead of any consequent reduction in his haughtiness, his language and demeanor bespoke the most absolute defiance and contempt.

But generally he shrouded himself in reserve; and as if desirous of showing his enemies that there was nothing in their presence even to rouse his curiosity, and much less to excite his apprehensions, he but rarely permitted his eyelids to be lifted up. He continued in this state several days, attended by his affectionate Indian servants, who had begged permission to wait upon him. But his long life of near an hundred years* was drawing to its close. He was basely shot through the back by one of the soldiers appointed to guard him, from no other provocation than the recollection of his ancient hostility.

The nearer

To the last moment his courage remained unbroken. death approached, the more care he seemed to use in concealing his dejection, and preserving the dignity and serenity of his aspect. Only a few minutes before he expired, he heard an unusual bustle in the room where he was confined. Having ordered his attendants to raise his eyelids, he discovered a number of persons crowding round him, for the purpose of gratifying an unseasonable curiosity. The dying chief felt the indignity, but disdaining to notice the intruders, he raised himself as well as he could, and with a voice and air of authority, demanded that the governor should be immediately brought in. When the latter made his appearance, the chieftain scornfully told him, that had it been his fortune to have taken Sir William Berkeley prisoner, he should not have exposed him as a show to his people."

Such was the death of Opechancanough. His character is too well explained by his life to require any additional comment. His own countrymen were more extensively and more completely under his influence than they had been under that of Powhatan himself. This is the more remarkable, from the fact that Opitchipan, whose age and family at least entitled him to some deference, retained the nominal

* So write some historians; but as he is understood to have been younger than Powhatan, the estimate is possibly too large by ten or twenty years. It is said that Berkeley had proposed taking him to England, as a living argument to counteract the representations made in that country as to the unhealthiness of the Virginian climate.