(urth) Seventeen

[Nicholas Gevers]

A possible reference by Wolfe is to the Dutch East India Company of the 17th and 
18th centuries, which was governed by a board of managers or factors called the 
"Heere Seventien" or Group of Seventeen. Given the Company's association with 
the sea, and origin in a country partly reclaimed from the sea, Wolfe might have 
intended a coded pelagic reference, thus to Abaia, Scylla, and the rest. The 
DEIC didn't have a very savoury reputation. Of course, the only overt reference 
to the Dutch in the entire Briah Cycle is in *On Blue's Waters* and *Return to 
the Whorl*, with Dorp and its doughty sailors...

--Nick Gevers.