At the time I have in mind—the beginning of 1607—there was not a white man in Virginia, nor in any of the present States to the northward. The Spanish had gained a foothold farther to the south, and St. Augustine, Florida, the first permanent white settlement in the United States, had had a feeble existence for more than forty years. Of course, the mountains, lakes, and rivers were the same as they are today; but there were no cities, towns, or villages, only vast stretches of forest and wilderness, where roamed wild animals and wild men or Indians. These people had no horses or cattle. The large herds of wild horses which had already begun to roam over the prairies and plains of the southwest, were the descendants of the droves of the early Spanish explorers, but not an animal of that kind was to be found in Virginia or to the northward.