The History of Virginia Part 22

Their fish is in vast plenty and variety, and extraordinary good in their kind. Beef and pork are commonly sold there, from one penny, to two pence the pound, or more, according to the time of year; their fattest and largest pullets at sixpence a piece; their capons at eight pence or nine pence a piece; their chickens at three or four shillings the dozen; their ducks at eight pence, or nine pence a piece; their geese at ten pence or a shilling; their turkey hens at fifteen or eighteen pence; and their turkey c.o.c.ks at two shillings or half a crown.

But oysters and wild fowl are not so dear, as the things I have reckoned before, being in their season the cheapest victuals they have. Their deer are commonly sold from five to ten shillings, according to the scarcity and goodness.

-- 72. The bread in gentlemen's houses is generally made of wheat, but some rather choose the pone, which is the bread made of Indian meal.

Many of the poorer sort of people so little regard the English grain, that though they might have it with the least trouble in the world, yet they don't mind to sow the ground, because they won't be at the trouble of making a fence particularly for it. And, therefore, their constant bread is pone, not so called from the Latin panis, but from the Indian name oppone.

-- 73. A kitchen garden don't thrive better or faster in any part of the universe than there. They have all the culinary plants that grow in England, and in greater perfection than in England. Besides these, they have several roots, herbs, vine fruits, and salad flowers peculiar to themselves, most of which will neither increase nor grow to perfection in England. These they dish up various ways, and find them very delicious sauce to their meats, both roast and boiled, fresh and salt; such are the Indian cresses, red buds, sa.s.safras flowers, cymlings, melons and potatoes, whereof I have spoken at large in the 4th chapter of the second book, section 20.

It is said of New England, that several plants will not grow there, which thrive well in England; such as rue, southernwood, rosemary, bays and lavender; and that others degenerate, and will not continue above a year or two at the most; such are July flowers, fennel, enula campana, clary and bloodwort. But I don't know any English plant, grain or fruit, that miscarries in Virginia: but most of them better their kinds very much by being sowed or planted there. It was formerly said of the red top turnip, that there, in three or four, years time, it degenerated into rape; but that happened merely by an error in saving the seed; for now it appears that if they cut off the top of such a turnip, that has been kept out of the ground all the winter, and plant that top alone without the body of the root, it yields a seed which mends the turnip in the next sowing.

-- 74. Their small drink is either wine and water, beer, milk and water, or water alone. Their richer sort generally brew their small beer with malt, which they have from England, though barley grows there very well; but for want of the convenience of malthouses, the inhabitants take no care to sow it. The poorer sort brew their beer with mola.s.ses and bran; with Indian corn malted by drying in a stove; with persimmons dried in cakes, and baked; with potatoes; with the green stalks of Indian corn cut small, and bruised; with pompions, and with the batates canadensis, or Jerusalem artichoke, which some people plant purposely for that use; but this is the least esteemed of all the sorts before mentioned.

Their strong drink is Madeira wine, cider, mobby punch, made either of rum from the Caribbee islands, or brandy distilled from their apples and peaches; besides brandy, wine, and strong beer, which they have constantly from England.

-- 75. Their fuel is altogether wood, which every man burns at pleasure, it being no other charge to him than the cutting and carrying it home.

In all new grounds it is such an inc.u.mbrance, that they are forced to burn great heaps of it to rid the land. They have very good pit coal (as is formerly mentioned) in several places of the country; but no man has yet thought it worth his while to make use of them, having wood in plenty, and lying more convenient for him.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OF THE CLOTHING IN VIRGINIA.

-- 76. They have their clothing of all sorts from England; as linen, woollen, silk, hats and leather. Yet flax and hemp grow no where in the world better than there. Their sheep yield good increase, and bear good fleeces; but they shear them only to cool them. The mulberry tree, whose leaf is the proper food of the silk worm, grows there like a weed, and silk worms have been observed to thrive extremely, and without any hazard. The very furs that their hats are made of perhaps go first from thence; and most of their hides lie and rot, or are made use of only for covering dry goods in a leaky house. Indeed, some few hides with much ado are tanned and made into servants' shoes, but at so careless a rate, that the planters don't care to buy them if they can get others; and sometimes perhaps a better manager than ordinary will vouchsafe to make a pair of breeches of a deerskin. Nay, they are such abominable ill husbands, that though their country be overrun with wood, yet they have all their wooden ware from England; their cabinets, chairs, tables, stools, chests, boxes, cart wheels, and all other things, even so much as their bowls and birchen brooms, to the eternal reproach of their laziness.

CHAPTER XIX.

OF THE TEMPERATURE OF THE CLIMATE, AND THE INCONVENIENCIES ATTENDING IT.

-- 77. The natural temperature of the inhabited part of the country is hot and moist, though this moisture I take to be occasioned by the abundance of low grounds, marshes, creeks and rivers, which are everywhere among their lower settlements; but more backward in the woods, where they are now seating, and making new plantations, they have abundance of high and dry land, where there are only crystal streams of water, which flow gently from their springs in innumerable branches to moisten and enrich the adjacent lands, and where a fog is rarely seen.

-- 78. The country is in a very happy situation, between the extremes of heat and cold, but inclining rather to the first. Certainly it must be a happy climate, since it is very near of the same lat.i.tude with the land of promise. Besides, as the land of promise was full of rivers and branches of rivers, so is Virginia. As that was seated upon a great bay and sea, wherein were all the conveniencies for shipping and trade, so is Virginia. Had that fertility of soil? So has Virginia, equal to any land in the known world. In fine, if any one impartially considers all the advantages of this country, as nature made it, he must allow it to be as fine a place as any in the universe, but I confess I am ashamed to say any thing of its improvements, because I must at the same time reproach my countrymen with unpardonable sloth. If there be any excuse for them in this matter, 'tis the exceeding plenty of good things with which nature has blest them; for where G.o.d Almighty is so merciful as to give plenty and ease, people easily forget their duty.

All the countries in the world, seated in or near the lat.i.tude of Virginia, are esteemed the fruitfullest and pleasantest of all climates.

As for example, Canaan, Syria, Persia, great part of India, China and j.a.pan, the Morea, Spain, Portugal, and the coast of Barbary, none of which differ many degrees of lat.i.tude from Virginia. These are reckoned the gardens of the world, while Virginia is unjustly neglected by its own inhabitants, and abused by other people.

-- 79. That which makes this country most unfortunate, is, that it must submit to receive its character from the mouths not only of unfit, but very unequal judges; for all its reproaches happen after this manner.

Many of the merchants and others, that go thither from England, make no distinction between a cold and hot country; but wisely go sweltering about in their thick clothes all the summer, because forsooth they used to do so in their northern climate; and then unfairly complain of the heat of the country. They greedily surfeit with their delicious fruits, and are guilty of great intemperance therein, through the exceeding plenty thereof, and liberty given by the inhabitants; by which means they fall sick, and then unjustly complain of the unhealthiness of the country. In the next place, the sailors for want of towns there, were put to the hardship of rolling most of the tobacco, a mile or more, to the water side; this splinters their hands sometimes, and provokes them to curse the country. Such exercise and a bright sun made them hot, and then they imprudently fell to drinking cold water, or perhaps new cider, which, in its season they found in every planter's house; or else they greedily devour the green fruit, and unripe trash they met with, and so fell into fluxes, fevers, and the belly ache; and then, to spare their own indiscretion, they in their tarpaulin language, cry, G.o.d d----m the country. This is the true state of the case, as to the complaints of its being sickly; for, by the most impartial observation I can make, if people will be persuaded to be temperate, and take due care of themselves, I believe it is as healthy a country as any under heaven: but the extraordinary pleasantness of the weather, and plenty of the fruit, lead people into many temptations. The clearness and brightness of the sky, add new vigor to their spirits, and perfectly remove all splenetic and sullen thoughts. Here they enjoy all the benefits of a warm sun, and by their shady trees are protected from its inconvenience.

Here all their senses are entertained with an endless succession of native pleasures. Their eyes are ravished with the beauties of naked nature. Their ears are serenaded with the perpetual murmur of brooks, and the thorough-base which the wind plays, when it wantons through the trees; the merry birds too, join their pleasing notes to this rural comfort, especially the mock birds, who love society so well, that often when they see mankind, they will perch upon a twig very near them, and sing the sweetest wild airs in the world. But what is most remarkable in these melodious animals, if they see a man take notice of them, they will frequently fly at small distances, warbling out their notes from perch to perch, be it house or tree convenient, and sometimes too fly up, to light on the same again, and by their music make a man forget the fatigues of his mind. Men's taste is regaled with the most delicious fruits, which, without art, they have in great variety and perfection.

And then their smell is refreshed with an eternal fragrancy of flowers and sweets, with which nature perfumes and adorns the woods and branches almost the whole year round.

Have you pleasure in a garden? All things thrive in it most surprisingly; you can't walk by a bed of flowers, but besides the entertainment of their beauty, your eyes will be saluted with the charming colors and curiosity of the humming bird, which revels among the flowers, and licks off the dew and honey from their tender leaves, on which it only feeds. Its size is not half so large as an English wren, and its color is a glorious shining mixture of scarlet, green and gold.

-- 80. On the other side, all the annoyances and inconveniences of the country may fairly be summed up, under these three heads, thunder, heat, and troublesome vermin.

I confess, in the hottest part of the summer, they have sometimes very loud and surprising thunder, but rarely any damage happens by it. On the contrary, it is of such advantage to the cooling and refining of the air, that it is oftener wished for than feared. But they have no earthquakes, which the Caribbee islands are so much troubled with.

Their heat is very seldom troublesome, and then only by the accident of a perfect calm, which happens perhaps two or three times in a year, and lasts but a few hours at a time; and even that inconvenience is made easy by cool shades, open airy rooms, summer houses, arbors, and grottos: but the spring and fall afford as pleasant weather as Mahomet promised in his paradise.

All the troublesome vermin that ever I heard anybody complain of, are either frogs, snakes, musquitoes, chinches, seed ticks, or red worms, by some called potato lice. Of all which I shall give an account in their order.

Some people have been so ill informed, as to say, that Virginia is full of toads, though there never yet was seen one toad in it. The marshes, fens, and watery grounds, are indeed full of harmless frogs which do no hurt, except by the noise of their croaking notes: but in the upper parts of the country, where the land is high and dry, they are very scarce. In these swamps and running streams, they have frogs of an incredible bigness, which are called bull frogs, from the roaring they make. Last year I found one of these near a stream of fresh water, of so prodigious a magnitude, that when I extended its legs, I found the distance betwixt them to be seventeen inches and an half. If any are good to eat, these must be the kind.

Some people in England are startled at the very name of the rattle snake, and fancy every corner of that province so much pestered with them, that a man goes in constant danger of his life, that walks abroad in the woods. But this is as gross a mistake, as most of the other ill reports of that country. For in the first place this snake is very rarely seen; and when that happens, it never does the least mischief, unless you offer to disturb it, and thereby provoke it to bite in its own defence. But it never fails to give you fair warning, by making a noise with its rattle, which may be heard at a convenient distance. For my own part I have traveled the country as much as any man in it of my age, by night and by day, above the inhabitants, well as among them; and yet before the first impression of this book I had never seen a rattle snake alive, and at liberty, in all my life. I had seen them indeed after they had been killed, or pent up in boxes to be sent to England.

The bite of this viper without some immediate application is certainly death; but remedies are so well known, that none of their servants are ignorant of them. I never knew any killed by these, or any other of their snakes, although I had a general knowledge all over the country, and had been in every part of it. They have several other snakes which are seen more frequently, and have very little or no hurt in them, viz: such as they call black snakes, water snakes, and corn snakes. The black viper snake, and the copper-bellied snake, are said to be as venomous as the rattle snake, but they are as seldom seen; these three poisonous snakes bring forth their young alive, whereas the other three sorts lay eggs, which are hatched afterwards; and that is the distinction they make, esteeming only those to be venomous, which are viviparous. They have likewise the horn snake, so called from a sharp horn it carries in its tail, with which it a.s.saults anything that offends it, with that force, that as it is said it will strike its tail into the b.u.t.t end of a musket, from which it is not able to disengage itself.

All sorts of snakes will charm both birds and squirrels, and the Indians pretend to charm them. Several persons have seen squirrels run down a tree directly into a snake's mouth; they have likewise seen birds fluttering up and down, and chattering at these snakes, till at last they have dropped down just before them.

In the end of May, 1715, stopping at an orchard by the road side to get some cherries, being three of us in company, we were entertained with the whole process of a charm between a rattle snake and a hare, the hare being better than half grown. It happened thus: one of the company in his search for the best cherries espied the hare sitting, and although he went close by her she did not move, till he, (not suspecting the occasion of her gentleness,) gave her a lash with his whip; this made her run about ten feet, and there sit down again. The gentleman not finding the cherries ripe, immediately returned the same way, and near the place where he struck the hare, he spied a rattle snake; still not suspecting the charm, he goes back about twenty yards to a hedge to get a stick to kill the snake, and at his return found the snake removed, and coiled in the same place from whence he had moved the hare. This put him into immediate thoughts of looking for the hare again, and he soon spied her about ten feet off the snake, in the same place to which she had started when he whipt her. She was now lying down, but would sometimes raise herself on her fore feet struggling as it were for life or to get away, but could never raise her hinder parts from the ground, and then would fall flat on her side again, panting vehemently. In this condition the hare and snake were when he called me; and though we all three came up within fifteen feet of the snake to have a full view of the whole, he took no notice at all of us, nor so much as gave a glance towards us. There we stood at least half an hour, the snake not altering a jot, but the hare often struggling and falling on its side again, till at last the hare lay still as dead for some time. Then the snake moved out of his coil, and slid gently and smoothly on towards the hare, his colors at that instant being ten times more glorious and shining than at other times. As the snake moved along, the hare happened to fetch another struggle, upon which the snake made a stop, laying at his length, till the hare had lain quiet again for a short s.p.a.ce; and then he advanced again till he came up to the hinder parts of the hare, which in all this operation had been towards the snake; there he made a survey all over the hare, raising part of his body above it, then turned off and went to the head and nose of the hare, after that to the ears, took the ears in his mouth one after the other, working each apart in his mouth as a man does a wafer to moisten it, then returned to the nose again, and took the face into his mouth, straining and gathering his lips sometimes by one side of his mouth, sometimes by the other; at the shoulders he was a long time puzzled, often hauling and stretching the hare out at length, and straining forward first one side of his mouth then the other, till at last he got the whole body into his throat. Then we went to him, and taking the twist band off from my hat, I made a noose and put it about his neck. This made him at length very furious, but we having secured him, put him into one end of a wallet, and carried him on horseback five miles to Mr. John Baylor's house, where we lodged that night, with a design to have sent him to Dr. c.o.c.k, at Williamsburg; but Mr. Baylor was so careful of his slaves that he would not let him be put into his boat, for fear he should get loose and mischief them; therefore, the next morning we killed him, and took the hare out of his belly. The head of the hare began to be digested and the hair falling off, having lain about eighteen hours in the snake's belly.

I thought this account of such a curiosity would be acceptable, and the rather because though I lived in a country where such things are said frequently to happen, yet I never could have any satisfactory account of a charm, though I have met with several persons who have pretended to have seen them. Some also pretend that those sort of snakes influence children, and even men and women, by their charms. But this that I have related of my own view, I aver, (for the satisfaction of the learned,) to be punctually true, without enlarging or wavering in any respect, upon the faith of a Christian.

In my youth I was a bear hunting in the woods above the inhabitants, and having straggled from my companions, I was entertained at my return, with the relation of a pleasant rencounter, between a dog and a rattle snake, about a squirrel. The snake had got the head and shoulders of the squirrel into his mouth, which being something too large for his throat, it took him up some time to moisten the fur of the squirrel with his spawl, to make it slip down. The dog took this advantage, seized the hinder parts of the squirrel, and tugged with all his might. The snake, on the other side, would not let go his hold for a long time, till at last, fearing he might be bruised by the dog's running away with him, he gave up his prey to the dog. The dog ate the squirrel, and felt no harm.

Another curiosity concerning this viper, which I never met with in print, I will also relate from my own observation:

Sometime after my observation of the charm, my waiting boy being sent abroad on an errand, also took upon himself to bring home a rattle snake in a noose. I cut off the head of this snake, leaving about an inch of the neck with it. This I laid upon the head of a tobacco hogshead, one Stephen Lankford, a carpenter, now alive, being with me. Now you must note that these snakes have but two teeth, by which they convey their poison; and they are placed in the upper jaw, pretty forward in the mouth, one on each side. These teeth are hollow and crooked like a c.o.c.k's spur. They are also loose or springing in the mouth, and not fastened in the jaw bone as all other teeth are. The hollow has a vent, also, through by a small hole a little below the point of the tooth.

These two teeth are kept lying down along the jaw, or shut like a spring knife, and don't shrink up as the talons of a cat or panther. They have also over them a loose thin film or skin of a flesh color, which rises over them when they are raised, which I take to be only at the will of the snake to do injury. This skin does not break by the rising of the tooth only, but keeps whole till the bite is given, and then is pierced by the tooth, by which the poison is let out. The head being laid upon the hogshead, I took two little twigs or splinters of sticks, and having turned the head upon its crown, opened the mouth, and lifted up the fang or springing tooth on one side several times, in doing of which I at last broke the skin. The head gave a sudden champ with its mouth, breaking from my sticks, in which I observed that the poison ran down in a lump like oil, round the root of the tooth. Then I turned the other side of the head, and resolved to be more careful to keep the mouth open on the like occasion, and observe more narrowly the consequence. For it is observed, that though the heads of snakes, terrapins and such like vermin, be cut off, yet the body will not die in a long time after--the general saying is, till the sun sets. After opening the mouth on the other side, and lifting up that fang also several times, he endeavored to give another bite or champ; but I kept his mouth open, and the tooth pierced the film and emitted a stream like one full of blood in blood letting, and cast some drops upon the sleeve of the carpenter's shirt, who had no waistcoat on. I advised him to pull off his shirt, but he would not, and received no harm; and tho' nothing could then be seen of it upon the shirt, yet in washing there appeared five green specks, which every washing appeared plainer and plainer, and lasted so long as the shirt did, which the carpenter told me was about three years after.

The head we threw afterwards down upon the ground, and a sow came and eat it before our faces, and received no harm. Now I believe had this poison lighted upon any place of the carpenter's skin that was scratched or hurt, it might have poisoned him. I take the poison to rest in a small bag or receptacle, in the hollow at the root of these teeth; but I never had the opportunity afterwards to make a farther discovery of that.

I will likewise give you a story of the violent effects of this sort of poison, because I depend upon the truth of it, having it from an acquaintance of mine of good credit, one Colonel James Taylor, of Mattapony, still alive, he being with others in the woods a surveying.

Just as they were standing to light their pipes, they found a rattle snake and cut off his head, and about three inches of the body. Then he, with a green stick which he had in his hand, about a foot and a half long, the bark being newly peeled off, urged and provoked the head, till it bit the stick in fury several times. Upon this the colonel observed small green streaks to rise up along the stick towards his hand. He threw the stick upon the ground, and in a quarter of hour the stick of its own accord split into several pieces, and fell asunder from end to end. This account I had from him again at the writing hereof.

Musquitoes are a sort of vermin of less danger, but much more troublesome, because more frequent. They are a long tailed gnat, such as are in all fens and low grounds in England, and I think have no other difference from them than the name. Neither are they in Virginia troubled with them anywhere but in their low grounds and marshes. These insects I believe are stronger, and continue longer there, by reason of the warm sun, than in England. Whoever is persecuted with them in his house, may get rid of them by this easy remedy: let him but set open his windows at sunset, and shut them again before the twilight be quite shut in. All the musquitoes in the room will go out at the windows, and leave the room clear.

Chinches are a sort of flat bug, which lurks in the bedsteads and bedding, and disturbs people's rest a nights. Every neat housewife contrives there, by several devices, to keep her beds clear of them. But the best way I ever heard, effectually to destroy them, is by a narrow search among the bedding early in the spring, before these vermin begin to nit and run about; for they lie snug all the winter, and are in the spring large and full of the winter's growth, having all their seed within them; and so they become a fair mark to find, and may with their whole breed be destroyed; they are the same as they have in London near the shipping.

Seed tick, and red worms are small insects, that annoy the people by day, as musquitoes and chinches do by night; but both these keep out of your way, if you keep out of theirs; for seed ticks are no where to be met with, but in the track of cattle, upon which the great ticks fatten, and fill their skins so full of blood, that they drop off, and wherever they happen to fall, they produce a kind of egg, which lies about a fortnight before the seedlings are hatched. These seedlings run in swarms up the next blade of gra.s.s that lies in their way; and then the first thing that brushes that blade of gra.s.s, gathers off most of these vermin, which stick like burs upon anything that touches them. They void their eggs at the mouth.

Red worms lie only in old dead trees, and rotten logs; and without sitting down upon such, a man never meets with them, nor at any other season, but only in the midst of summer. A little warm water immediately brings off both seed ticks and red worms, though they lie ever so thick upon any part of the body. But without some such remedy they will be troublesome; for they are so small that nothing will lay hold of them, but the point of a penknife, needle, or such like. But if nothing be done to remove them, the itching they occasion goes away after two days.

-- 81. Their winters are very short, and don't continue above three or four months, of which they have seldom thirty days of unpleasant weather, all the rest being blest with a clear air, and a bright sun.

However, they have very hard frost sometimes, but it rarely lasts above three or four days, that is, till the wind change: for if it blow not between the north and north-west points, from the cold Appalachian mountains, they have no frost at all. But these frosts are attended with a serene sky, and are otherwise made delightful by the tameness of the wild fowl and other game, which by their incredible number, afford the pleasantest shooting in the world.

Their rains, except in the depth of winter, are extremely agreeable and refreshing. All the summer long they last but a few hours at a time, and sometimes not above half an hour, and then immediately succeeds clear sunshine again. But in that short time it rains so powerfully, that it quits the debt of a long drought, and makes everything green and gay.

I have heard that this country is reproached with sudden and dangerous changes of weather, but that imputation is unjust; for tho' it be true, that in the winter, when the wind comes over those vast mountains and lakes to the north-west, which are supposed to retain vast magazines of ice, and snow, the weather is then very rigorous; yet in spring, summer and autumn, such winds are only cool and pleasant breezes, which serve to refresh the air, and correct those excesses of heat, which the situation would otherwise make that country liable to.

CHAPTER XX.