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, 1 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 
1 St. Helena : a Physical , Historical , and Topographical Description of the 
Island , &c. By John Charles Melliss, F.Gr.S., &c. London : 1875. 
