THE CARVING ON THE TREE: A True Account of America's First Mystery: The Lost Colony of Roanoke Island

One carving read ""CRO"" and another spelled out ""CROATOAN,"" and the English settlers assumed their predecessors willingly left Roanoke Island for Croatoan and the tribe of Manteo, a friendly Indian. Just what became of those colonists has never been determined but it is believed they reached the Indians and moved in, because a century later gray-eyed Indians in the tribe ""said their ancestors were white men who could 'talk in a book.' Many of them had the same last names as the lost colonists."" (Alternatives mentioned include massacre by hostile indians or New World Spaniards but not the questionable Georgia stone tablets listing Virginia Dare et al.) Moving chronologically from Raleigh's dream to the ""citte of Ralegh,"" the second coming and the subsequent disappearance, this, is a somewhat fictionalized, slightly romanticized narrative, but the small chapters and numerous (and dramatic) illustrations also serve as attractors. Highly pictorial history; an enterprising short.