A “wildernes As God First Made It”

To its first colonists, Virginia presented an aspect less idyllic, if no less strange, than it held for their compatriots back home in England. On the following pages are photographs of the area near Jamestown, taken by Bradley Smith, which show as closely as possible how the landscape would have looked to Captain John Smith and his companions, when they came here to plant a colony, and look for gold, in 1607. The quotations that accompany them are taken from Edward Arber’s edition (1884) of Smith’s Works , which includes not only his own writings but various letters and accounts by his fellow adventurers.

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