39^ NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BERMUDAS. 



Thus, fifty years later, Henry May speaks of meeting 

 with " many hogs, but these were so lean as to be unfit for 

 food." Sixteen years after Henry May's visit to those 

 islands, Sir George Somers found " herds of swine " there. 



Of course, there were no hogs in the islands at the date 

 of their first discovery, consequently we are compelled to 

 look at the vessel wrecked at " Spanish Rock," in 1543, as 

 the only source from whence those animals were introduced. 



Strachy, who gives a most graphic account of the ship- 

 wreck of the " Sea Adventure," declares that he had wit- 

 nessed many storms on the most dangerous shores of 

 Europe and Africa, but never such a furious one as this, 

 which seemed " fury added to fury, and one storm urging 

 a second more outrageous. The sky poured down not 

 rain, but rivers, yet without assuaging the tumultuous 

 fury of the blast, the ship most violently leaked, and 

 though two thousand tonne of water, by pumping from 

 Tuesday noone to Friday noone, was discharged, not- 

 withstanding the ship was halfe filled with water, and those 

 who laboured to keep others from drowning were halfe 

 drowned themselves in labouring ; all were despairing, when 

 at this moment Sir George Somers descryed land. The 

 islands on which they fell were the Bermudos, a^ place 

 hardly accessible through the environing rocks and dangers ; 

 notwithstanding they were forced to runne their ship on 

 shoare, which through God's providence fell between two 

 rockes that caused her to stand firm, and not immediately 

 to be broken, God continuing his mercy unto them, that 

 with their long boats they transported to land before night 

 all their companie, to the number of one hundred and fiftie; 

 they carried to shore all the provisions unspoiled, all their 

 furniture and tackling of the ship, leaving nothing but 

 bared ribs as a prey unto the ocean. 



" These Islands of the Bermudos have ever beene 



