A. E. Verr'dl — The Bermuda Islands. 711 



Tdiis was probably on St. George's where they landed, and the sea- 

 son was unfavorable for the hogs. There must have been a long 

 period of famine for the hogs every winter, after the cedar and 

 palmetto berries were all gone, for at that time, and perhaps partly 

 in consequence of their previous ravages (see p. 589), there were but 

 few other edible plants for them on the islands, though they could 

 always find more or less food cast up by the sea on the beaches. 



Silvanus Jourdan stated that Sir George Somers sometimes took 

 32 hogs in one day. His party of 150, who lived nine months on 

 the islands, not only depended largely on the hogs for food, but 

 also took a supply of the dried flesh to Virginia. But they also took 

 pains to gather food to fatten them in confinement. 



Strachy gave the following graphic account of the wild hogs as 

 they existed in 1(309: — 



" Wee had knowledge that there were wilde Hogges upon the 

 Hand, at first by our owne Swine preserved from the wrack and 

 brought to shoare : for they straying into the woods, an huge wilde 

 Boare followed downe to our quarter, which at night was watched 

 and taken in this sort. One of Sir George Summer's men went and 

 lay among the Swine, when the Boare being come and groveled by 

 the Sowes, hee put over his hand and rubbed the side gently of the 

 Boare, which then lay still, by which meanes hee fastened a rope 

 with a sliding knot to the hinder legge and so tooke him, and after 

 him in this sort two or three more. But in the end (a little busi- 

 nesse over) our people would goe a hunting with our Ship Dogge, 

 and sometimes bring home thirtie, sometimes fiftie Boares, Sowes, 

 and Pigs in a weeke alive ; for the Dog would fasten on them and 

 hold, wildest the Hunts-men made in : and there bee thousands of 

 them in the Hands, and at that time of the yeere, in August, Sep- 

 tember, October, and November, they were well fed with Berries 

 that dropped from the Cedars and the Palmes, and in our quarter 

 wee made stves for them, and cmtherino- of these Berries served 

 them twice a day, by which meanes we kept them in good plight ; 

 and when there was any fret of weather (for upon every increase of 

 wind the billow would be so great, as it was no putting out with our 

 Gundall or Canow) that we could not fish nor take Tortoyses, then 

 wee killed our Hogs. 



But in February when the Palme Berries began to be scant or dry 

 and the Cedar Berries failed two months sooner, true it is the Hogs 

 grew poore, and being taken so, Avee could not raise them to be 

 better for besides those Berries, we had nothing wherewith to franke 

 them." 



