ge when wonder-tales were eagerly welcomed, and
which exhibited such tender pity in the breast of a savage maiden, and
such paternal clemency in a savage chief, would have been omitted. It
was calculated to lend a lively interest to the narration, and would be
invaluable as an advertisement of the adventure.

[For a full bibliographical discussion of this point the reader is
referred to the reprint of "The True Relation," by Charles Deane,
Esq., Boston, 1864, the preface and notes to which are a masterpiece of
critical analysis.]

That some portions of "The True Relation" were omitted is possible.
There is internal evidence of this in the abrupt manner in which it
opens, and in the absence of allusions to the discords during the voyage
and on the arrival. Captain Smith was not the man to pass over such
questions in silence, as his subsequent caustic letter sent home to the
Governor and Council of Virginia shows. And it is probable enough that
the London promoters would cut out from the "Relation" complaints
and evidence of the seditions and helpless state of the colony. The
narration of the captivity is consistent as it stands, and wholly
inconsistent with the Pocahontas episode.

We extract from the narrative after Smith's departure from Apocant, the
highest town inhabited, between thirty and forty miles up the river, and
below Orapaks, one of Powhatan's seats, which also appears on his map.
He writes:

"Ten miles higher I discovered with the barge; in the midway a great
tree hindered my passage, which I cut in two: heere the river became
narrower, 8, 9 or 10 foote at a high water, and 6 or 7 at a lowe: the
stream exceeding swift, and the bottom hard channell, the ground most
part a low plaine, sandy soyle, this occasioned me to suppose it might
issue from some lake or some broad ford, for it could not be far to the
head, but rather then I would endanger the barge, yet to have beene able
to resolve this doubt, and to discharge the imputating malicious tungs,
that halfe suspected I durst not for so long delaying, some of the
company, as desirous as myself, we resolved to hier a canow, and returne
with the barge to Apocant, there to leave the barge secure, and put
ourselves upon the adventure: the country onely a vast and wilde
wilderness, and but only that Towne: within three or foure mile we hired
a canow, and 2 Indians to row us ye next day a fowling: having made such
provision for the barge as was needfull, I