United States or Jersey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Must I learn to be afraid?" Slowly the man nodded. Most Indians grow old quickly, and are withered like dried-up apples as soon as the later years come upon them. But Secotan, although his hair was gray, had still the clear-cut face with its arched nose and heavy brows of a younger man. Only his eyes, deep, piercing, and very wise, seemed to show how long he had lived and how much he had learned.
He undertook several voyages of exploration, penetrated north as far as Elizabeth River and a town on Chesapeake Bay, and south to Secotan, eighty leagues from Roanoke. But his most famous expedition was up Albemarle Sound and the Chowan River, of his adventures in which he has himself given us a description in a letter preserved by Captain Smith.
"Do the spirits of the water actually rise up and tell you that we must keep to the shore? I do not believe it, although my grandmother says so until my ears ring again." Secotan turned his head quickly, as though to hide the ghost of a smile.
The medicine man shook his head without speaking. "My grandmother says 'Nothing," pursued Nashola, "but I know that cannot be. Is it one of the things that I must not ask and that you may not tell me because you are a sorcerer and I am only a boy?" Secotan was silent so long that Nashola thought he did not mean to reply at all. Even when he spoke it did not seem to be an answer.
"The chief of these men and I have talked with signs and he wishes to carry me to his home on this strange winged vessel. He promises that he will bring me safe back again. Then I can tell you and all of our tribe what these white men really are. And I have always longed to know what lay beyond this forbidden sea." Secotan did not protest.
Word Of The Day