sent out to make a preliminary survey, on landing at Hatteras, was the wild grape, which grew in extraordinary profusion along the shore, on the hills and on the plains, now running over a small shrub, now climbing to the top of a towering cedar. The chronicler of the voyage declared that he had visited those parts of Europe in which this fruit was most abundant, but that the difference in quantity in favor of Roanoke was quite incredible. The adventurers were also deeply impressed by the magnificence of the trees and the variety of the natural products. The cedars surpassed the cedars of the Azores or the Indies. The oaks were larger in girth and of a greater height than the English oaks. Fields of flax were found in many places. The natives wore bracelets of pearl and pendants of copper.[1]
In the subsequent expedition, the observation of the country was more extensive, and therefore led to a fuller knowledge of its physical character. Ralph Lane, in his letter to Hakluyt, pronounced the grapes of Virginia to be larger than those of France, Spain, or Italy. Many kinds of apothecary drugs and sweet gums were to be found there, and also several species of flax and silk grass. Terra sigillata was also discovered. In short, Lane declared that “what commodities soever, Spaine, France, Italy or the Easte partes doe yeeld unto us in wines of all sortes, in oyles, in flaxe, in rosens, pitch, frankensence, corrans, sugers and such like, these parts doe abound with the growth of them all,” and he added, “and sundry other rich commodities that no parts of the world, be they West, or East Indies, have, here wee finde great abundance of.”[2]
