Passage—First Corn-Planting—Indian Habits—First House of Burgesses—Tobacco-Growing—Virginia Planters—Importing Negro Slaves—Newport News—Merrimac and Monitor Contest—Hampton Roads—Hampton—Old Point Comfort—Fortress Monroe—Fort Algernon—Fort Wool—Elizabeth River—Norfolk—Portsmouth—Great Dismal Swamp—The Eastern Shore—The Oyster Navy—William Claiborne—Kent Island—Lord Baltimore—The Maryland Palatinate—Leonard Calvert's Expedition—St. Mary's—Patuxent River—St. Inigoe's—Severn River—Annapolis—United States Naval Academy—Patapsco River—Baltimore—Jones's Falls—Washington Monument—Battle Monument—Johns Hopkins and his Benefactions—Baltimore and Ohio Railroad—Druid Hill—Greenmount Cemetery—Fort McHenry—The Star-Spangled Banner.

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.

When Captain Christopher Newport's expedition of three little ships and one hundred and five men, sent out by the "Virginia Company" to colonize America, after four months' buffeting by the rough winter storms of the North Atlantic, sought a harbor of refuge in May, 1607, they sailed into Chesapeake Bay. These three little ships were the "Susan Constant," the "Good Speed" and the "Discovery;" and upon them came Captain John Smith, the renowned adventurer, who, with Newport, founded the first permanent settlement in North America, the colony of Jamestown. The king who chartered the "Virginia Company" was James I., and hence the name. As the fleet sailed into the "fair bay," as Smith called it, the headlands on either side of the entrance were named Cape Charles and Cape Henry, for the king's two sons. Their first anchorage was in a roadstead of such attractive character that they named the adjacent land Point Comfort, which it retains to this day; and farther inland, where Captain Newport afterwards came, in hopes of getting news from home, is now the busy port and town of Newport News. Sir Walter Raleigh, in the previous century, had sent out his ill-starred expedition to Roanoke, which had first entered this great bay; and at the Elizabeth River, which they had named in honor of Raleigh's queen, they found the Indian village of Chesapik, meaning "the mother of waters;" and from this came the name of Chesapeake Bay. Raleigh had landed colonists here, as well as at Roanoke, and when the "Virginia Company" sent out Newport's expedition it laid three commands upon those in charge: First, they were to seek Raleigh's lost colonists; second, they were to find gold; and third, they were to search for the "northwest passage" through America to the Pacific Ocean. So strong was the belief in finding gold in the New World that the only consideration King James asked for his charter was the stipulation that the "Virginia Company" should pay him one-fifth of the gold and silver found in its possessions.

As none of Raleigh's colonists could be found, the expedition sailed up the James River after considerable delay, and, selecting a better place for a settlement, landed at Jamestown May 13, 1607, where Smith became their acknowledged leader, and preserved the permanency of the colony. This famous navigator and colonist was a native of Willoughby, in Lincolnshire, England, born in January, 1579. When scarcely more than a boy he fought in the wars of Holland, and then he wandered through Europe and as far as Egypt, afterwards returning to engage in the conflict against the Turks in Hungary. Here he won great renown, fighting many desperate combats, and in one engagement cutting off three Turks' heads; but he was finally wounded and captured. The sober, investigating historians of a later day have taken the liberty to doubt some of Smith's wonderful tales of these remarkable adventures, but he must have done something heroic to season him for the hardy work of the pioneer who was the first to succeed in planting a colony in North America. After the Turks made him a prisoner, he was sold as a slave in Constantinople, being condemned to the hardest and most revolting kinds of labor, until he became desperate under the cruelties and escaped. Then he was for a long time a wanderer through the wilderness, traversing the forests of Russia, and pushing his way alone across Europe, until, almost worn out with fatigue and hardships, he arrived in England just at the time Newport's expedition was being fitted out; and still having an irrepressible love for adventure, he joined it.

CHESAPEAKE BAY.

There can be no better place for beginning a survey of our country than upon this great bay, which Smith and his companions entered in 1607. Chesapeake Bay is the largest inland sea on the Atlantic Coast of the United States. It stretches for two hundred miles up into the land, between the low and fertile shores of Virginia and Maryland, both of which States it divides, and thus gives them valuable navigation facilities. In its many arms and estuaries are the resting-places for the luscious oysters which its people send all over the world. It is one of the greatest of food-producers, having a larger variety of tempting luxuries for the palate than probably any other region. Along its shores and upon its islands are numberless popular resorts for fishing and shooting, for its tender and amply-supplied water-foods attract the ducks and other wild fowl in countless thousands, and bring in shoals of the sea-fishes, which are the sportsmen's coveted game. Its terrapin are famous, while its shores and borderlands, particularly on the eastern side, are a series of orchards and market-gardens, providing limitless supplies of fruits, berries and vegetables for the Northern markets. It receives in its generally placid bosom some of the greatest rivers flowing down from the Allegheny Mountains. The broad Susquehanna, coming through New York and Pennsylvania, makes its headwaters, and it receives the Potomac, dividing Maryland from Virginia, and the James, in Virginia, both of them wide estuaries with an enormous outflow; and also numerous smaller streams, such as the Rappahannock, York, Patuxent, Patapsco, Choptank and Elizabeth Rivers. Extensive lines of profitable commerce, all large carriers of food-supplies, have transport over this great bay and its many arms and affluents. Canals connect it with other interior waters, and leading railways with all parts of the country, while there are several noted cities upon its shores and tributaries.

THE CITY OF WASHINGTON.

The most famous of all these cities of the Chesapeake region is Washington, upon the Potomac, and we will therefore begin this story at the American National Capital. The striking thing about Washington is that, unlike other capitals of great nations, it was created for the sole purpose of a seat of government, apart from any question of commercial rank or population. It has neither manufactures nor commerce to speak of. After the adoption of the Federal Constitution there was a protracted conflict in Congress over the claims of rival localities for the seat of government, and this developed so much jealousy that it almost disrupted the Union at its inception. General Washington, then the President, used his strong influence and wise judgment to compromise the dispute, and it was finally decided that Philadelphia should remain the capital for ten years, while after the year 1800 it should be located on the Potomac River, on a site selected by Washington, within a district of one hundred square miles, ceded by Maryland and Virginia, and which, to avoid any question of sovereignty or control, should be under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress. The location was at the time nearly in the geographical centre of the then thirteen original States. As the city was designed