284 



ISLAND LIFE. 



[part II. 



could only be retained on the steep slopes so long as it was 

 protected by the vegetation to which it in great part owed its 

 origin. When this was destroyed, the heavy tropical rains soon 

 washed away the soil, and has left a vast expanse of bare rock 

 or sterile clay. This irreparable destruction was caused in the 

 first place by goats, which were introduced by the Portuguese in 

 1513, and increased so rapidly that in 1588 they existed in 

 thousands. These animals are the greatest of all foes to trees, 

 because they eat off the young seedlings, and thus prevent the 

 natural restoration of the forest. They were, however, aided by 

 the reckless waste of man. The East India Company took 

 possession of the island in 1651, and about the year 1700 it 

 began to be seen that the forests were fast diminishing, and 

 required some protection. Two of the native trees, redwood 

 and ebony, were good for tanning, and to save trouble the bark 

 was wastefully stripped from the trunks only, the remainder 

 being left to rot; while in 1709 a large quantity of the rapidly 

 disappearing ebony was used to burn lime for building fortifica- 

 tions ! By the MSS. records quoted in Mr. Melliss' interesting 

 volume on St. Helena,^ it is evident that the evil consequences 

 of allowing the trees to be destroyed were clearly foreseen, as 

 the following passages show : We find the place called the 

 Great Wood in a flourishing condition, full of young trees, where 

 the hoggs (of which there is a great abundance) do not come to 

 root them up. But the Great Wood is miserably lessened and 

 destroyed within our memories, and is not near the circuit and 

 length it was. But we believe it does not contain now less than 

 fifteen hundred acres of fine woodland and good ground, but no 

 springs of water but what is salt or brackish, which we take to 

 be the reason that that part was not inhabited when the people 

 first chose out their settlements and made plantations ; but if 

 wells could be sunk, which the governor says he will attempt 

 when we have more hands, we should then think it the most 

 pleasant and healthiest part of the island. But as to healthi- 

 ness, we don't think it will hold so if the wood that keeps the 

 land warm were destroyed, for then the rains, which are violent 



^ St. Helena : a Physical, Historical, and Topographical Description of the 

 Island, &c. By John Charles Melliss, F.G.S., &c. London : 1875. 



