whose moral and political foundations are laid upon a rock. And when the genius of desolation shall sit and howl on the deserted sites of Mammon, and among the falling splendours of the Pacific-when ambition and vanity and avarice and fanaticism have done their work in other places, and set their seal of blood and gloom and rottenness and ruin and terror upon them, the sun, as he walks the heavens in his diurnal round, will still look down on one spot of beauty and happiness, where the glory of his beams is rivalled by the light of humanity and love. That land will be our own North-Carolina; and from the hearts of its free men and virtuous women will still ascend a sweet savour, grateful to Heaven, and calling down its continual blessings!

-Carolinians are indebted, for the discovery a ize their State, to the zeal and enterprise gh, one of the leading statesmen, and th gentleman of his day. Endowed with a nius, and an ambition that looked beyond ropean courts, Raleigh made himself famili of navigators and adventurers who had visit Western World; and to plant a colony and ate became, with him, a darling object. T s, he obtained from Queen Elizabeth (March) uch lands as he should discover, not in the 'hristian prince or people.

t contained important powers and privileges t no other should take possession of any place leagues of settlements which he might make He at once fitted out two vessels, under th lip Amidas and Arthur Barlow; and on the

Pursuing a south-westerly route, they touched at the Canary Islands on their passage; and sailing thence northward, they soon got soundings in a region where the air of early summer was laden with the aroma of flowers and fragrant shrubs. These balmy breezes came from the shores of North-Carolina; and after ranging the coast for one hundred and twenty miles, the adventurers entered, on the 4th of July, 1584, the first haven which offered, devoutly returned thanks to God for their safe arrival, and, in the name of the Queen of England, took possession of the country.

The scene of this interesting ceremony was an island called Wokoken; and the event happening in early summer, when that eastern region appears in its richest glory, the imaginations of the adventurers were filled with pleasing images and glowing fancies. The blue heavens were not obscured by a cloud; and on the tranquil bosom of the waters gleamed innumerable islands.

The air was redolent with the perfume of many-tinted flowers, and vocal with the songs of birds; and among the giant trees, draped in hoary moss and festooned with luxuriant vines, were bowers and cool arbours where nature and her children reposed in dreamy tranquillity.

An air of romance seemed to pervade the region; and the native inhabitants, artless, gentle, and generous, awakened images of a golden age and Arcadian pleasures.

II.

IN a few days these timid people began to approach the English strangers; and at one time forty or fifty, with Granganemo, their chief, made their appearance, exchanged presents, and made signs of friendship and confidence. The wife and children of the chief were afterwards introduced; and a brisk trade soon took the place of hospitable ceremonies and professions.

Some days after casting anchor, one of the captains, with seven or eight men, went in a boat to Roanoke Island; and, on the northern end, found a little town built of cedar, and surrounded with palisades for defence. Here dwelt Granganemo, an Indian dignitary, who, however, was not then at home; but his wife received the strangers with the frank courtesy and queenly grace which nature only can inspire. She made her men carry the English on their shoulders over the shallows of the shelving shore; had their clothes washed and dried, and set before them melons, wild fruits, and the best provisions in her house.

The friendship of 'Manteo, another Indian chief, was secured; and after making an imperfect examination of Roanoke Island and of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, the expedition returned to England.

It was accompanied by Manteo and Wauchese, natives of the new country, and arrived in England in September; and such glowing accounts were given of its discoveries that Elizabeth deemed her reign signalized by a grand event, and in honour of her maiden state gave the name of Virginia to these new possessions.

Raleigh was soon after elected a member of Parliament for Devonshire; his patent was confirmed, and he received the honour of knighthood.

III.

ANOTHER expedition, consisting of seven vessels, was, not long afterwards, fitted out; and these were under the command of Ralph Lane and Sir Richard Grenville, the former of whom, a soldier of distinction, who was afterwards knighted, was to act for Raleigh as governor of his colony. One hundred and seven colonists went with the expedition; and with it were also several men of merit and after fame, such as Cavendish, who afterwards circumnavigated the globe, Hariot, the inventor of the system of algebraic notation, and With, a painter.

This fleet also pursued a south-westerly course; and in June, 1585, was in great danger of being wrecked off the Cape, which then was called, and has since borne the name of Cape of Fear, or more briefly, Cape Fear.

In two days afterwards, however, it anchored at (June, 1585) Wokoken; and afterwards finding its way through an inlet, now filled up, cast anchor at Roanoke Island. During his stay, Grenville, accompanied by Lane, Hariot, With, and Cavendish, and several men, in an excursion of eight days, explored the coast; passed by several islands, through Core Sound, and reached Secotan, near the present site of Beaufort.

In this excursion Grenville lost a silver cup at one of the Indian towns on the river Neuse; and returning thither, and not immediately receiving the lost article, rashly and cruelly burned the village, and destroyed the crops of growing corn.

Thus were foolishly sown the first seeds of enmity between the English and the natives; and this hasty revenge for the loss of a trinket was the fruitful source of troubles, and finally produced the failure of an enterprise on which the greatest man of his day had fixed his heart, and in which he spent his fortune.

IV.

LATE in August, Sir Richard, promising to return in the spring, set sail for England; and his ships were laden with red

cedar, peltry, and sassafras, which, from its fragrance, it was supposed would take the place of some of the East Indian spices and other aromatics, and to which great healing virtues were attributed.

The colony was planted on Roanoke Island; and in that salubrious climate, up to September, not a single case of sickness had occurred among the hundred and seven settlers.

Lane and his subjects chiefly employed themselves in exploring the country; but unfortunately the names then used to designate bays, creeks, inlets, islands, and rivers, were Indian appellations, and have mostly passed into early oblivion.

To the south, his discoveries extended as far as Secotan, in the present county of Carteret; to the north, they reached to Elizabeth River, which empties into the Chesapeake Bay, not far from Norfolk; and in the interior, the Chowan had been examined beyond the junction of the Nottoway and Meherrin.

The Indians were described as clothed in mantles and aprons of deer-skins-having for weapons wooden swords or spears, bows of witch-hazel, and arrows of reeds. They were hospitable and gentle, and, at first, unsuspicious; but they were also found to possess native cunning, and when wronged, and their feelings outraged, were cruel, revengeful, and treacherous.

The country which Lane explored was south of the limits of the Algonquin Race, and inhabited by a great variety of tribes; but most of them were branches of the Corees and Tuscaroras, the great races that inhabited Eastern Carolina. In that soft climate, where game and fish were abundant, and easily taken, the Indians were more docile and less warlike than in more rugged and sterile regions; and, as a consequence of more fixed and domestic habits, were divided into many petty communities, with different names and designations.

In the upland and middle part of the State were the Catawbas, a more robust and active people; and in the west were the hardy hunter-tribes of Cherokees, who delighted in mountain regions.

Lane seems to have been enchanted with the country which he visited; and, in a letter, thus expresses his opinions: "It is the goodliest soil under the cope of heaven; the most pleasing territory in the world: the continent is of huge and unknown greatness, and very well peopled and towned, though savagely. The climate is so wholesome that we have not one sick since we touched the land. If Virginia had but houses and kine, and were inhabited with English, no realm in Christendom were comparable to it."

Hariot, a man of science, observed the culture of tobacco, which is a native of America; and he became also accustomed to