4 THE SEA. 



saw in the sand the print of the savages* feet trodden that night; and as we entered up 

 the sandy bank, upon a tree at the very brow thereof were curiously carved these fair 

 Roman letters, CEO, which letters presently we knew to signify the place where I 

 should find the planters seated, according to a token agreed upon at my departure.*" He 

 had told them in case of distress to carve over the letters or name a cross; but no such 

 sign was found. At the spot itself where he expected the settlement, he found the houses 

 taken down, and the place enclosed with logs or trees. Many heavy articles, bars of iron, 

 pigs of lead, shot, and so forth, were lying about, almost overgrown with grass and weeds. 

 Five chests, of which three were his own, were found at last, but they had been evidently 

 broken into by the savages. " About the place," says White, " many of my things, spoiled 

 and broken, and my books torn from the covers, the frames of some of my pictures and 

 maps rotten and spoiled with rain, and my armour almost eaten through with rust." But 

 on one of the trees or chief posts of the enclosure, the word CROATOAN was carved in 

 large letters, and he now understood that they were with Manteo's tribe. It was agreed 

 that they should make for that place ; but again fortune was against them. 



One disaster followed another, and when at last they left Virginia, it was with the 

 intention of wintering in tho West Indies, and returning the following spring ; but even 

 this was not to be. Stress of weather drove them to the Azores, and once there it was 

 naturally decided to return to England. No later attempt was made to succour them, 

 and the fate of ninety-one men, seventeen women, and nine children, and of two infants 

 born there, the names of which are preserved in Hakluyt, was never known. Raleigh 

 has been greatly blamed for inhumanity in this connection. His excuse is that it was the 

 busiest part of his eventful life. He had just borne his part in the defeat of the Armada; 

 had been one of eleven hundred gentlemen who ventured on the unfortunate Portuguese 

 expedition ; had been sent, in what was regarded as an honourable banishment, but none 

 the less an exile, to Ireland; on regaining his place in the queen's favour had taken an active 

 part in Parliamentary service ; was concerned in a fresh naval expedition from which he 

 was recalled by the queen, and had his first taste of that cell in the Tower, which later on he 

 left only for the scaffold. 



In 1595, we find Raleigh bent on a discovery which had long been a feverish dream 

 with him the conquest of the fabled El Dorado. It was but the result of the discoveries 

 of the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru; and all over the Spanish main there was a fond 

 belief extant in something greater and richer than anything yet found. One of the 

 traditions of the day was that a relative of the last reigning Inca of Peru, escaping from 

 the wreck of that empire, with a large part of its remaining forces and treasure, had 

 established himself in a new country, which was found to be itself as rich in mines as 

 that from which he had migrated. " The Spaniards/' says Southey, " lost more men in 

 seeking for this imaginary kingdom than in the conquest of Mexico and Peru." 



Raleigh was encouraged in this enterprise by such men as Cecil, and the Lord High 

 Admiral Howard, who contributed to its cost. His idea was to enter the land of gold by 

 the Orinoco, and prior to his own voyage he despatched a ship, under Captain Whiddon, to 

 reconnoitre on that part of the coast, and to seek information at the island of Trinidad. When 

 Raleigh and his squadron had arrived at one of its ports he found a company of Spaniards 



