188 A. EH. Verritl—The Bermuda Islands. 600 
distinct from the Barbadoes Juniper, or Cedar, with which it was 
formerly confounded by most writers.* 
In general appearance it resembles the American Red Cedar. It 
grows more rapidly and to larger size, and its wood is very much 
harder and heavier, and not so red. The foliage is lighter and more 
bluish or grayish than that of Red Cedar. Its berries are more 
pulpy, with smaller seeds, and are edible. At least they were eaten 
by the early settlers, in times of scarcity, and are still often eaten 
by children. 
They were also valuable, like the palmetto berries, as the natural 
food of the wild hogs, found on the islands by the first settlers, and 
also for the domesticated swine that were immediately introduced. 
They ripened in the fall and, according to Strachy, were all gone 
early in December, two months before the last of the palmetto 
berries. 
The early settlers also learned to make a liquor of them, by steep- 
ing them in water and allowing the decoction to ferment for a few 
days. The quality of it is not fully described, but many of the early 
colonists were desperately fond of anything that would intoxicate 
them. The gum of the cedar was also used medicinally. 
The timber was used for building the small vessels in which 
Henry May and his shipwrecked companions escaped to Newfound- 
land in 1694, and also for building the two larger vessels in which 
Sir George Somers and his company of one hundred and fifty ship- 
wrecked people sailed to Virginia in 1610, though some oak from 
their wrecked vessel was used for the timbers and some of the planks 
in the larger of their two vessels. The timber is very durable. 
Boats built of it have been kept serviceable one hundred years, it is 
claimed. 
The early settlers used the cedar wood extensively for all building 
purposes, including boats and larger vessels, as well as dwellings, 
and also for fuel and for the shipping boxes or “chests.” 
In the early years the timber was shipped to England, when full 
cargoes of tobacco, or other commodities, could not be had for the 
return voyages of the ‘magazine ships” sent out by the Bermuda 
Company. The cedar was highly valued at that time in England for 
the manufacture of choice furniture, for mahogany and rosewood 
were then practically unknown. 
Instructions from the company to the governor to cut down and 
* About 1885 it was found growing, in a limited district, in the Blue Moun- 
tains of Jamaica. (See Voyage Challenger, Botany, vol. i, p. 82.) 
