"Their eares they boare with wyde holes, commonly two or three, and
in the same they doe hang chaines of stayned pearle braceletts, of
white bone or shreeds of copper, beaten thinne and bright, and wounde
up hollowe, and with a grate pride, certaine fowles' legges, eagles,
hawkes, turkeys, etc., with beasts clawes, bears, arrahacounes,
squirrells, etc. The clawes thrust through they let hang upon the
cheeke to the full view, and some of their men there be who will
weare in these holes a small greene and yellow-couloured live snake,
neere half a yard in length, which crawling and lapping himself about
his neck oftentymes familiarly, he suffreeth to kisse his lippes.
Others weare a dead ratt tyed by the tayle, and such like
conundrums."

This is the earliest use I find of our word "conundrum," and the
sense it bears here may aid in discovering its origin.

Powhatan is a very large figure in early Virginia history, and
deserves his prominence. He was an able and crafty savage, and made
a good fight against the encroachments of the whites, but he was no
match for the crafty Smith, nor the double-dealing of the Christians.
There is something pathetic about the close of his life, his sorrow
for the death of his daughter in a strange land, when he saw his
territories overrun by the invaders, from whom he only asked peace,
and the poor privilege of moving further away from them into the
wilderness if they denied him peace.

In the midst of this savagery Pocahontas blooms like a sweet, wild
rose. She was, like the Douglas, "tender and true." Wanting
apparently the cruel nature of her race generally, her heroic