Getting started reading mail stored in local maildir

[Dan Davison]

I want to try out gnus, but have got nowhere so far. I would greatly 
appreciate instruction on how to read mail stored locally in maildirs.

My email is downloaded by getmail, and stored by procmail into a variety 
of maildirs stored under ~/email/. However in order to start playing with 
gnus, I have created the directory ~/Maildir containing a single 
maildir-format directory:

~> ls ~/Maildir/dan-mail/
cur  new  tmp

My ~/.gnus.el contains

(setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil ""))
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
      '((nnmaildir "" (directory "/home/dan/Maildir/"))))

When I start gnus I enter a (Group Plugged) buffer which is empty 
with the message "No more unread newsgroups". When I hit "L" I see

       0: nndraft:queue 
       0: nndraft:drafts 

When I hit "^" I enter a (Server Plugged) buffer containing

 {nnfolder:archive} (closed)

 RET on that line results in a message "Connecting to archive ... done", after
which "L" displays

     {nnfolder:archive} (opened)


This isn't the first time I've lost a few hours trying to get started 
with gnus, so I am giving up and sending this (admittedly pathetic) email.

Thanks for any help!

Dan