50 A. HE. Verril—The Bermuda Islands. 462 
But I have found no description of the nature or amount of work 
actually completed there. 
Among the old records are numerous entries of amounts paid to 
the garrison and for supplies of various kinds, up to 1690 or later. 
Southampton Fort was also in use as late as 1693.* The usual amount 
of pay was 170 pounds of tobacco annually, for each man of the- 
garrison ; for in those times tobacco was the regular currency of the 
islands, not only for the payment of wages and salaries, even of the 
governor, but also in ordinary trade and barter. In 1622 tobacco 
was valued there at 2 shillings 6 pence per pound, but the people 
claimed that this was too little. In 1629 there is a record of 
amounts in tobacco paid for cedar lumber, nails, rosin, tar, etc., for 
anew water cistern and platform at the King’s Castle, as well as for 
the labor of building it. 
Repairs were recorded as made at King’s Castle and Southampton 
Fort in 1660, and a new cedar platform was made at King’s Castle. 
It was used as a prison in 1649, and it is recorded that it was 
made the place from which the pilots should go out to ships in 1656. 
In June, 1672, much alarm was felt on account of news of the 
war between England and Holland. Consequently the forts were 
repaired, guns were remounted, and a new fort was ordered to be 
built, at an unfortified place, but the locality is not recorded. Per- 
haps this was the very old stone redoubt at the entrance of Hungry 
Bay, now in ruins, but with part of the side walls standing. All the 
guns were ordered tested with double charges in 1674. 
The King’s Castle was again repaired and the guns were put in 
order by Governor Coney, in 1684. 
As the extinct “cahow” was still abundant on the adjacent 
islands when the earliest fortifications were built on Castle Island, 
and as it must, undoubtedly, have furnished part of the rations of 
the workmen and garrison up to 1616, it was thought possible that 
by a careful search in the adjacent soil, or in the kitchen-refuse of 
those ancient works, if any could be found, some of the bones of the 
cahow might be discovered. Probably most of their rubbish was 
thrown over the high cliff, directly into the sea. | 
A considerable mass of debris, mixed with “kitchen middens,” 
was, however, overhauled close to the old fort on Gurnet Head, but 
no cahow bones were found, though there were bones of common 
birds, fishes, and domestic animals in good preservation, showing 
that the calcareous soil is suitable for the preservation of the bones. 
* One of the depositions made in 1693, in regard to buried treasures, was by 
Capt. Brangman, commander of Southampton Fort. (See ch. 26, c.) 
