A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 633 



provisions, and if so, they may have planted the seeds. As it took 

 about 20 years for the olives planted later to commence bearing, 

 these wild olives, if real ones, must have been introduced as early as 

 about 1593, so that they might have been planted by May's com- 

 rades. 



Probably the Bermudas, like many other uninhabited islands, were 

 often visited by the Spanish buccaneers and pirates of the 16th 

 century, for wood and water and for repairs. It is well known that 

 they were in the habit of leaving hogs and goats on uninhabited 

 islands, in order to be able to secure fresh provisions, in such remote 

 and secret places, when needed, or when they visited such islands to 

 careen and repair their vessels. 



The Bermudas, dreaded as they were at that time, both by the 

 commercial and naval vessels of all nations, would have afforded 

 pirates an admirable chance to land and repair their vessels, while 

 they could have obtained an abundance of fresh provisions from the 

 birds and their eggs, the sea-turtles, fishes, etc. It is not unlikely 

 that at such times they may have introduced both olives and figs. 



It is not unlikely that they ma} r also have introduced many other 

 fruits and edible vegetables, as they often did on other islands. But 

 if so the great increase of the wild hogs would probably have soon 

 led to the extinction of all those plants that they could eat.* (See 

 ch. 26.) 



The Bermuda Company made very early efforts to have olive 

 trees planted. They sent over seeds, with directions for planting 

 them, at several periods, and the trees began to bear fruit about 

 1640, but no great use seems to have been made of them. Perhaps 

 pickled green olives were not then in use there. 



Mr. Richard Norwood, the engineer, having made some olive oil 

 in 1660, the Councell ordered that ten olive trees should be planted 

 on every share of land in the islands. But there is no evidence that 

 this attempt ever became of commercial importance. 



* Hogs and goats, which were placed on St. Helena in 1513, increased to such 

 an extent, especially the goats, that in the course of about three centuries they 

 utterly destroyed the thick foi'ests of native ebony and other trees, as well as 

 nearly all other vegetation, converting the previously well wooded high plains 

 into a barren waste of volcanic rocks. Even in 1588, Capt. Cavendish, who 

 visited the island at that time, said that the goats had so increased that they 

 existed in flocks over a mile long, containing thousands. 



By 1810 the forests had been entirely destroyed, except on the high, central 

 volcanic peaks, and many of the remarkable endemic species, including the once 

 abundant ebony, had become nearly or quite extinct. At present the vegetation 

 of the plains has been only partially replaced by plants of foreign origin. 



