until the coming of the Messias, the only
knowledge of the eternal and never-changing Trinity". The Virginians,
on the other hand, fell heir to the ignorance, and "fearful and
superstitious instinct of nature" of Ham (p. 40). Ahone, therefore, is
not invented by Strachey to bolster up a theory (held by Strachey),
of an inherited revelation, or of a sensus numinis which could not go
wrong. Unless a proof be given that Strachey had a theory, or any other
purpose, to serve by inventing Ahone, I cannot at present come into the
opinion that he gratuitously fabled, though he may have unconsciously
exaggerated.

What were Strachey's sources? He was for nine months, if not more, in
the colony: he had travelled at least 115 miles up the James River, he
occasionally suggests modifications of Smith's map, he refers to Smith's
adventures, and his glossary is very much larger than Smith's; its
accuracy I leave to American linguists. Such a witness, despite his
admitted use of Smith's text (if it is really all by Smith throughout)
is not to be despised, and he is not despised in America.(1) Strachey,
it is true, had not, like Smith, been captured by Indians and either
treated with perfect kindness and consideration (as Smith reported at
the time), or tied to a tree and threatened with arrows, and laid out
to have his head knocked in with a stone; as he alleged sixteen years
later! Strachey, not being captured, did not owe his release (1) to
the magnanimity of Powhattan, (2) to his own ingenious lies, (3) to
the intercession of Pocahontas, as Smith, and his friends for him, at
various dates inconsistently declared. Smith certainly saw more of the
natives at home: Strachey brought a more studious mind to what he could
learn of their customs and ideas; and is not a convicted braggart. I
conjecture that one of Strachey's sources was a native named Kemps.
Smith had seized Kemps and Kinsock in 1609. Unknown authorities (Powell?
and Todkill?) represent these two savages as "the most exact villaines
in the country".(2) They were made to labour in fetters, then were set
at liberty, but "little desired it".(3) Some "souldiers" ran away to the
liberated Kemps, who brought them back to Smith.(4) Why Kemps and his
friend are called "two of the most exact villains in the country"
does not appear. Kemps died "of the surveye" (scurvey, probably) at
Jamestown, in 1610-11. He was much made of by Lord De la Warr, "could
speak a pretty deal of our Engli