allowance. The continued use of this diet is said to have caused the skins of the unfortunate men to peel from their bodies, but this physical ailment, which was doubtless very much exaggerated, could hardly have been due to such innocent food. General debility arising from long exposure to the sudden changes of the new climate and from alternations between abundance and starvation and starvation and abundance, not to speak of the mental agitation undergone in the efforts to repel the assaults of the savages and to establish the settlement on a permanent footing, had most probably induced the physical condition which the colonists attributed to the fare upon which they subsisted.[1] Mussels were as numerous in the rivers wherever the water was fresh as oysters were where it was salt. They were especially abundant at Wyanoke.[2] The bed of the Powhatan at that place was covered with shells. There were two varieties of crabs, the larger being a foot in length and half a foot in width, with a very long tail and with many legs. One alone furnished food for four men. Turtles were also found in the Bay and rivers. The tortoises discovered on land were eaten daily by the early colonists.[3]
If the waters of aboriginal Virginia teemed with fish, the wild fowl frequenting the same waters were hardly less remarkable in point of number and variety. As soon as September arrived they began to appear in vast
- ↑ “Breife Declaration of the Plantation of Virginia during the first Twelve Years,” British State Papers, Colonial, vol. III, No. 21, I. This interesting document will also be found in Colonial Records of Virginia, State Senate Doct. Extra, 1874, p. 69. For special reference, see p. 70.
- ↑ Relatyon of the Discovery of our River, p. xli, See also Works of Capt. John Smith, p. 7.
- ↑ Strachey’s Historie of Travaile into Virginia, p. 127. Description of the New Discovered Country, British State Papers, Colonial, vol. I, 15, I; Winder Papers, vol. I, p. 2, Va. State Library.
