"Lieutenant of the Tower" in 1616, it is believed that the manuscript
must have been written before that date, since the author would not
have omitted the more important of the two titles in his dedication.

Strachey's prefatory letter to the Council, prefixed to his "Laws"
(1612), is dated "From my lodging in the Black Friars. At your best
pleasures, either to return unto the colony, or pray for the success
of it heere." In his letter he speaks of his experience in the
Bermudas and Virginia: "The full storie of both in due time [I] shall
consecrate unto your view.... Howbit since many impediments, as yet
must detaine such my observations in the shadow of darknesse, untill
I shall be able to deliver them perfect unto your judgments," etc.

This is not, as has been assumed, a statement that the observations
were not written then, only that they were not "perfect"; in fact,
they were detained in the "shadow of darknesse" till the year 1849.
Our own inference is, from all the circumstances, that Strachey began
his manuscript in Virginia or shortly after his return, and added to
it and corrected it from time to time up to 1616.

We are now in a position to consider Strachey's allusions to
Pocahontas. The first occurs in his description of the apparel of
Indian women:

"The better sort of women cover themselves (for the most part) all
over with skin mantells, finely drest, shagged and fringed at the
skyrt, carved and coloured with some pretty work, or the proportion
of beasts, fowle, tortayses, or other such like imagry, as shall best
please or expresse the fancy of the wearer; their younger women goe
not shadowed amongst their owne companie, until they be nigh eleaven