Chesapeake Bay, and from the Atlantic to the Appalachians. Out of this
Virginia there grow in succession the ancient colonies and the modern
States of Virginia, Maryland, South and North Carolina, and Georgia.

But for many a year Virginia itself was the only settlement and the only
name. This Virginia was a country favored by nature. Neither too hot nor
too cold, it was rich-soiled and capable of every temperate growth in its
sunniest aspect. Great rivers drained it, flowing into a great bay, almost
a sea, many-armed as Briareus, affording safe and sheltered harbors.
Slowly, with beauty, the land mounted to the west. The sun set behind
wooded mountains, long wave-lines raised far back in geologic time. The
valleys were many and beautiful, watered by sliding streams. Back to the
east again, below the rolling land, were found the shimmering levels, the
jewel-green marshes, the wide, slow waters, and at last upon the Atlantic
shore the thunder of the rainbow-tinted surf. Various and pleasing was the
country. Springs and autumns were long and balmy, the sun shone bright, there
was much blue sky, a rich flora and fauna. There were mineral wealth and
water power, and breadth and depth for agriculture. Such was the Virginia
between the Potomac and the Dan, the Chesapeake and the Alleghanies.

This, and not the gold-bedight slim neighbor of Cathay, was now the lure of
the Susan Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery. But those aboard,
obsessed by Spanish America, imperfectly knowing the features and distances
of the orb, yet clung to their first vision. But they knew there would be
forest and Indians. Tales enough had been told of both!

What has to be imaged is a forest the size of Virginia. Here and there,
chiefly upon river banks, show small Indian clearings. Here and there are
natural meadows, and toward the salt water great marshes, the home of
waterfowl. But all these are little or naught in the whole, faint