Of the privation, dissensions and sickness which followed Newport's
departure, the bad water, rotten food, constant trouble with savages,
and the unreasonable demands of the directors of the London Company, all
historians have told. One story, which Smith was wont to tell with keen
relish, deals with the instructions of the Company that the Indian
chief, "King Powhatan," should be crowned with all due ceremony, just at
a time of year when every hand in the colony was needed for attending to
the crops. Smith and Newport had just come to a reasonable understanding
with that astute savage, by which he treated them with real respect; and
the attention paid him by his "brother James," as he proceeded to call
the King of England, rather turned his head. He liked the red cloak sent
him, but had no idea what a crown meant. The raccoon skin mantle which
he removed when robed in the royal crimson was sent to England and is
now in a museum at Oxford.
After some years of strenuous toil and adventure John Smith went back
to London. An explosion of powder, whether accidental or intentional was
never known, wounded him seriously just before he left Jamestown, and he
did not recover from it for some time.
"And what is in your mind to do next, Captain?" asked Master William
Simons the geographer when they had finished, between them, the new map
of Virginia.
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