Note Note 1, page 29 — BOOK I. RISE OF THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONY.

Founding of Jamestown. The colonists chose for the site of their town what was then a malarial peninsula; it has since become an island. The place was naturally defended by the river on all sides, except where a narrow stretch of sand made a bridge to the main. Note 1. Its chief advantage in the eyes of the newcomers was that the deep water near the shore made it possible to moor the ships by merely tying them up to trees on the river bank. Relatyon of the Discovery of our River, Am. Antiq. Soc., iv, 61. Here the settlers planted cotton and orange trees at once, and experimental potatoes, melons, and pumpkins, but they postponed sowing grain until about the first of June in our reckoning.