was believed that we were come near to the new world, and by day
and by night the seamen stood at the rail, throwing the lead every
few minutes in order to discover if we were venturing into shoal
water.

Nathaniel and I used to stand by watching them, and wishing that
we might be allowed to throw the line, but never quite getting up
our courage to say so, knowing full well we should probably make
a tangle of it.



THE NEW COUNTRY SIGHTED


As Master George Percy has set down in the writings which I have
copied for him since we came to Virginia, it was on the twenty-sixth
day of April, in the year of our Lord 1607, at about four o'clock
in the morning, when we were come within sight of that land where
were to be built homes, not only for our company of one hundred
and five, counting the boys, but for all who should come after us.

It was while the ship lay off the land, her decks crowded with our
company who fain would get the first clear view of that country in
which they were to live, if the savages permitted, that I asked my
master who among the gentlemen of the cabin was the leader in this
adventure.

To my surprise, he told me that it was not yet known. The London
Company had made an election of those among the gentlemen who should