633 A, E. Verrill— The Bermuda Islands. 221 
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 may 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 forests 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 1088, 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. 
