595 A. EK. Verrill—The Bermuda Tslands. 183 
In winter, most of the older leaves turn yellow and die, and they 
are often much damaged by the violent winds, especially when in 
exposed places, near the shore. It is of slow growth, like many 
other palms. 
The early settlers all considered it an exceedingly valuable and 
useful tree. Admiral Somers’ party and the early colonists used 
large quantities of the berries for food, in their season. The wild 
hogs fattened upon them, and so did the domesticated hogs that 
were very soon introduced there. Large numbers of the trees were 
cut down, at first, for the soft head or cabbage, which, like that of 
the Cabbage-Palm, is edible and nutritious when boiled. 
A little later the natives learned to make an intoxicating liquor 
ealled “bibby” or “beeby,” from the fermented sweet sap and pulp 
of the interior, and they cut down large numbers of the best trees 
for this purpose. 
The leaves, in early times, and for more than sixty years later, 
were extensively used for thatching the roofs and the sides of dwell- 
ings, and of the first churches. At the present time they are still used 
for the manufacture of hats, fans, and baskets, and sometimes for 
braiding various fancy articles. 
When the islands were first settled the Palmetto was very abun- 
dant, according to the earliest writers, and it seems that it grew to 
a much greater size than it does at present. 
Cutting the trees down for their heads to cook, and for the sap to 
make “bibby,” led to the destruction of most of the larger trees in 
less than thirty years. 
In the narrative [1610) of William Strachy, who was one of 
Admiral Somers’ shipwrecked party, the following account of the 
Palmetto appears: “Likewise there grow great store of Palme 
Trees”; . . . “in growth, fashion, leaves and branches, resembling 
those true Palmes; for the tree is high and straight, sappy and 
spongious, unfirm for any use, no branches but in the uppermost 
part thereof, and in the top grow leaves about the head of it, the 
most inmost part whereof they call Palmeto, and it is the heart and 
pith of the same Trunke, so white and thin, as it will peele off into 
fleaks as smooth and delicate as white Satin, into twentie folds (in 
which a man may write as in paper) where they spread and fall 
downward about the Tree like an overblown Rose, or Saffron flower 
not early gathered.” ... ‘With these leaves we thatched our 
Cabbins, and roasting the Palmito, or soft top thereof, they had a 
taste like fried melons, and being sod they eate like Cabbedges, but 
