elal A. EF. Verrill—The Bermuda Islands. 299 
This 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 1609:— 
“Wee had knowledge that there were wilde Hogges upon the 
land, 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 might 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, whilest the Hunts-men made in: and there bee thousands of 
them in the Ilands, 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 styes for them, and gathering 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, wee could not raise them to be 
better for besides those Berries, we had nothing wherewith to franke 
them.” 
