Unlike the American Indians, the Jamestown settlers had little knowledge of North American geography past the coastline. One significant goal of Smith’s voyage of exploration was to discover a short route to the Pacific Ocean, thereby eliminating the need for the long and arduous voyage around Africa to reach Asia. With each large river they encountered, the possibility of discovering a passage to the Pacific Ocean arose in their minds. Smith interpreted poorly understood Chesapeake Indian accounts of a western sea as being the Pacific, but it is most likely these accounts were of the Great Lakes. All efforts to find a Pacific route met disappointment and only gradually did the English come to realize the vast scale of the North American continent.