The 4th, in the morning, as soon as the day was light, we saw that it was good riding[348] farther up. So we sent our boat to sound, and found that it was a very good harbor, and four and five fathoms two cables’ length from the shore. Then we weighed, and went in with our ship. Then our boat went on[349] land with our net to fish, and caught ten great mullets of a foot and a half long apiece, and a ray as great as four men could haul into the ship. So we trimmed our boat, and rode still all day. At night, the wind blew hard at the north-west, and our anchor came home;[350] and we drove on shore, but took no hurt, thanked be God! for the ground is soft sand and ooze. This day the people of the country came aboard of us, seeming very glad of our coming, and brought green tobacco, and gave us of it for knives and beads. They go in deerskins, loose, well dressed. They have yellow copper. They desire clothes, and are very civil. They have great stores of maize or Indian wheat, whereof they make good bread. The country is full of great and tall oaks.
The 5th in the morning, as soon as the day was light, the wind ceased, and the flood[351] came. So we heaved off our ship again into five fathoms water, and sent our boat to sound the bay; and we found that there was three fathoms [depth] hard by the souther shore. Our men went on land there, and saw great store of men, women, and children, who gave them tobacco at their coming on land. So they went up into the woods, and saw great store of very goodly oaks, and some currants. For one of them came aboard, and brought some dried, and gave me some, which were sweet and good. This day many of the people came aboard, some in mantles of feathers, and some in skins of divers sorts of good furs. Some women also came to us with hemp. They had red copper tobacco-pipes; and other things of copper they did wear about their necks. At night they went on land again: so we rode very quiet, but durst not trust them.
The 6th in the morning was fair weather; and our master sent John Colman with four other men in our boat, over to the north side to sound the other river, being four leagues from us. They found by the way shoal water, two fathoms, but at the north of the river eighteen and twenty fathoms, and very good riding for ships, and a narrow river to the westward between two islands. The lands, they told us, were as pleasant with grass and flowers and goodly trees as ever they had seen, and very sweet smells came from them. So they went in two leagues, and saw an open sea, and returned; and, as they came back, they were set upon by two canoes, the one having twelve, the other fourteen men. The night came on, and it began to rain, so that their match[352] went out; and they had one man slain in the fight,――which was an Englishman named John Colman,――with an arrow shot into his throat, and two more hurt. It grew so dark, that they could not find the ship that night, but labored to and fro on their oars. They had so great a stream, that their grapnel[353] would not hold them.