Still further explorations

Other explorers included Bilbo, Cabbage de Vaca, Cortez (known as The Stout, who travelled much in realms looking for gold), and Pantsy de Lion, a thirsty old man who was looking for a drinking fountain. He never found it, but he founded Florida, to which a great many thirsty old men have gone ever since.

The virginia colony

All this time there was not much happening in the New World, except that it was steadily growing older. Sir Walter Raleigh, a man with a pointed beard, established a colony in America in the hope of pleasing the Queen, whose favour he had been in but was temporarily out of. Although he claimed the new land in the name of Elizabeth, he called it Virginia, which aroused suspicions in Elizabeth's mind and caused her to confine Sir Walter in a tower. While imprisoned, Sir Walter made good use of his time by writing a history of the world on such scraps of paper as he could find, and filling other scraps of paper with a weed brought back from Virginia. He had barely completed his history when he lost his head. Had he been permitted to keep it a few years longer he might have become the first man to roll a cigarette with one hand.

The Virginia Colony was lost for a time, and its name was changed to The Lost Colony, but it was subsequently found at about the place where it was last seen. Its original name of Virginia was restored because Elizabeth no longer cared, being dead.

The indians

The people who were already in the New World when the white men arrived were the first Americans, or America Firsters. They were, also referred to as the First Families of Virginia.

The early colonists found the Indians living in toupees, or wigwams, and sending up smoke signals, or wigwags, with piece pipes. Apparently because of a shortage of pipes, they sat in a circle and passed one pipe around, each biting off a piece as it passed. The chief Indian was named Hiawatha, and his squaw, whose name was Evangeline, did all the work. This was later to become an Old American Custom.

The Chiefs, it must be said in all fairness, were too busy to work. They were engaged in making wampum, or whoopee, when they were not mixing war paint or scattering arrowheads about, to be found centuries later.

In order to have their hands free to work, the squaws carried their babies, on their back, very much as kangaroos carry their babies on their front, only different.

The Indians were stern, silent people who never showed their feelings, even while being scalped. They crept up on their enemies without breaking a twig and were familiar with all the warpaths. Despite their savage ways, they sincerely loved peace, and were called Nobel Savages.

Their favourite word was 'How', which the colonists soon learned was not a question.

The whites feared the redskins and considered them the forest's prime evil. Some went so far as to say that 'The only good Indian is a wooden Indian'. The redskins resented the whiteskins because they thought they had come to take their lands away from them, and their fears were well grounded.