Argall..is a novel by William T. Vollman about the history of early Virginia built around the relationship between Pocahontas and John Smith...and later John Rolfe. It is a 746 page hardbound brainbuster written in what is presumably period English. Unless you have an obsessive interest in the subjects, I don't particularly recommend it unless you are confined to quarters for the next two weeks or so. It can be found in remainder shelves and on the 'net for usually less than 5 bucks..something of a testimony as to how well it sold I imagine. However, as I was slogging though it I marked a few quotes that resonated slightly with me for future reference and will share them: John Smith: "I once read in an old Almanacke, that the principal duty of a Navigator is to know where he is. Welladay, and how to do that here in Virginia? Rivers and streams, to be sure, make faultless landmarks, but what of this darkness to starboard and larboard? And as for wooddes and hedges with such like, the Almanacke sayeth, these are not to be marked, because suche things may be cut or felled downe, and so youre marke is lost: Wherfore hylles, vales, cliftes, and Castels, with stepels and Churches, are the beste and most surest markes, that may or can be taken, and are better than hedgrowes, wooddes or trees." [wonder why those guys writing the land patents didn't realize this? <g>] "But now upon Newporte's (governor) council they do reinstate malignant Ratcliffe to the Counsell! Additionally, they install .2. pawns by name Captaine Waldo & Captaine Wynne." [Robert Wynne?]. "That subtle old Powhatan was the veriest Tymor, who, did Sweet John place himself in his power, would traduce or e'en murther him; so he could never accompt himself safe! (Not that his own Countreymen at James Towne were any less treacherous, but their plottings he could more easily comprehend in the o'erhearing)." "...Rebecca (Pocahontas) was standing without their croft with the child in her arms. Venus was already out, and the other night stars were gaining power. Down Thomas's (Rolfe) shirt filed an army of little buttons. Sir Thomas Dale (governor), after whom he'd been named, had granted him that gift upon his christening." "Thomas Rolfe knows not whether to sit or to stand, for all that these Salvages are his relations. Is this dance meant to be for him? He gazes at his uncle (Opechancanough), who continues to watch him most smilingly. He married with a well-to-do Englishwoman named Jane Poythress, on whom he begat a daughter. What lands he got into his tenure, 'tis not written (altho' I've heard he did make a pretty little garden in the English manner). Some say that Powahatan bequeathed him many acres, but 'tis surely folly to ascribe anything like akin to duty to such an ignorant old Salvage. This Jane of his, the World remembers her not. Nor do we ken anything about his daughter's moral color. I hope that her family continued to be of such repute (at least on her father's side) that some gold-Adventurer took her to wife. Of this I'm sure: Ready money cannot have been lacking to pay her marriage-portion. But concerning her father, what were his doings in that parish, & how his life and death turn'd out, are matters engross'd in many documents (I misdoubt me not) but all these got burn'd in 1865, at the end of the American Civil War. Hence no one even knows whether he remained alive after 1658, by which time it had coincidentally become illegal for Englishmen in Virginia to marry with Negroes, mulattoes, or Indians such as his late mother." "Very little can now be discovered of the subsequent history of these tribes severally, wrote Jefferson in his Notes on the State of Virginia. To him, as to John Rolfe and John Smith, their vanquishment was as natural as the rule of husband over wife...Thus, the Virginian Salvages, whom old chroniclers once described as tall, comely, strong and active, now sink beneath the mold." "Jefferson continues: The Chicahominies removed, about the year 1661, to Mattapony river.This seems to have been the last chapter in their history. They retained however their separate name as late as 1705, and were at length blended with the Pamunkies and Mattaponies, and exist at present only under their names." "For this Never-Never Viginia, the only one in which Powhatan still reigns today, is depicted on the title page of his (John Smith's) Generall Historie." I found it interesting...and as one can quickly gather Vollman does not paint a favorable picture of the English adventurers. If I didn't have anything better to do, I'd likely read the book again..but I wouldn't be caught actually recommending it. It's just too quirky.. obscure terminology, strange syntax, switching timeframes of references...just plain hard work to keep up with the author who seems in a world of his own. Maynard