Therefore leaving _Katearas_, I travelled through the Woods until the sixteenth, upon which I came to _Kawitziokan_, an Indian town upon a branch of _Rorenoke_-river, which here I passed over, continuing my journey to Menchœrinck; and on the seventeenth departing from thence, I lay all night in the Woods, and the next morning betimes going by _Natoway_, I reached that evening _Apamatuck_ in _Virginia_, where I was not a little overjoyed to see Christian faces again.
From the Falls of _Rappahanock_-River in _Virginia_, (due West) to the top of the _Apalatæan_ Mountains.
On the twentieth of _August_ 1670, Col. _Catlet_ of _Virginia_ and my self, with nine English Horse, and five Indians on foot, departed from the house of one _Robert Talifer_, and that night reached the falls of _Rappahanock_-river, in Indian _Mantepeuck_.
The next day we passed it over where it divides into two branches North and South, keeping the main branch North of us.
The three and twentieth we found it so shallow, that it onely wet our horses hoofs.
The four and twentieth we travelled thorow the _Savanæ_ amongst vast herds of Red and Fallow Deer which stood gazing at us; and a little after, we came to the Promontories or Spurs of the _Apalatæan_-mountains.
These _Savanæ_ are low grounds at the foot of the _Apalatæans_, which all the Winter, Spring, and part of the Summer, lie under snow or water, when the snow is dissolved, which falls down from the Mountains commonly about the beginning of _June_; and then their verdure is wonderful pleasant to the eye, especially of such as having travelled through the shade of the vast Forest, come out of a melancholy darkness of a sudden, into a clear and open skie. To heighten the beauty of these parts, the first Springs of most of those great Rivers which run into the _Atlantick_ Ocean, or _Cheseapeack_ Bay, do here break out, and in various branches interlace the flowry Meads, whose luxurious herbage invites numerous herds of Red Deer (for their unusual largeness improperly termed Elks by ignorant people) to feed. The right Elk, though very common in _New Scotland_, _Canada_, and those Northern parts, is never seen on this side of the Continent: for that which the _Virginians_ call Elk’s, does not at all differ from the Red Deer of _Europe_, but in his dimensions, which are far greater: but yet the Elk in bigness does as far exceed them: their heads, or horns, are not very different; but the neck of the Elk is so short, that it hardly separates the head from the shoulders; which is the reason that they cannot feed upon level ground but by falling on their knees, though their heads be a yard-long: therefore they commonly either brouse upon trees, or standing up to the belly in ponds or rivers feed upon the banks: their Cingles or tails are hardly three inches long, I have been told by a _New-England_-Gentleman, that the lips and nostrils of this creature is the most delicious meat he ever tasted. As for the Red Deer we here treat of, I cannot difference the taste of their flesh from those in _Europe_.