Of the privation, dissensions and sickness which followed Newport's departure, the bad water, rotten food, constant trouble with savages, and the unreasonable demands of the directors of the London Company, all historians have told. One story, which Smith was wont to tell with keen relish, deals with the instructions of the Company that the Indian chief, "King Powhatan," should be crowned with all due ceremony, just at a time of year when every hand in the colony was needed for attending to the crops. Smith and Newport had just come to a reasonable understanding with that astute savage, by which he treated them with real respect; and the attention paid him by his "brother James," as he proceeded to call the King of England, rather turned his head. He liked the red cloak sent him, but had no idea what a crown meant. The raccoon skin mantle which he removed when robed in the royal crimson was sent to England and is now in a museum at Oxford. After some years of strenuous toil and adventure John Smith went back to London. An explosion of powder, whether accidental or intentional was never known, wounded him seriously just before he left Jamestown, and he did not recover from it for some time. "And what is in your mind to do next, Captain?" asked Master William Simons the geographer when they had finished, between them, the new map of Virginia. Smith's eyes twinkled as he snapped the cover on his inkhorn. "Why, 't is hard for an old rover like me to lie abed when there's man's work to be done. You know, the London Company holds only the southern division of the King's Patent for Virginia; the north's given to Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth. And that's never been settled yet." "There was a colony of Captain George Popham and Ralegh Gilbert went out, five year ago," said Simons doubtfully. "They said they could not endure the bitter climate." "Sho," said Smith impatiently, one stubbed forefinger on the map, "'t is in almost the same latitude as France. Maybe they chose the wrong place for their plantation. Why, the French trade furs with the savages, all up and down the Saint Laurence, and mind the cold no more than nothing at all. The first thing we know, the Dutch will be out here finding a road to the Indies." Both men laughed. They had lost faith in that road to fortune. "Anyhow Hudson didn't find it when they sent him to look for it the year afore he died," said Simons, "or they'd be into it now. But what are you scheming?" "First make a voyage of exploration," said Smith. "I ha' talked with one and another that told me they taken a draught of the coast, and I ha' six or seven of the plots they drew, so different from one another and out of proportion they do me as much good as so much waste paper--though they cost me more," added the veteran grimly. "With a true map o' the coast, we'd know whereabouts we were." "No gold nor silver, I hear."