The History of Virginia Part 9

-- 17. At the mouth of their rivers, and all along upon the sea and bay, and near many of their creeks and swamps, grows the myrtle, bearing a berry, of which they make a hard brittle wax, of a curious green color, which by refining becomes almost transparent. Of this they make candles, which are never greasy to the touch, nor melt with lying in the hottest weather; neither does the snuff of these ever offend the smell like that of a tallow candle; but instead of being disagreeable, if an accident put a candle out, it yields a pleasant fragrancy to all that are in the room; insomuch, that nice people often put them out, on purpose to have the incense of the expiring snuff.

The melting of these berries is said to have been first found out by a surgeon in New England, who performed wonderful things, with a salve made of them. This discovery is very modern, notwithstanding these countries have been so long settled.

The method of managing these berries is by boiling them in water, till they come to be entirely dissolved, except the stone or seed in the middle, which amounts in quant.i.ty to about half the bulk of the berry; the biggest of which is something less than a corn of pepper.

There are also in the plains, and rich low grounds of the freshes, abundance of hops, which yield their product without any labor of the husbandman, in weeding, hilling or poling.

-- 18. All over the country is interspersed here and there a surprising variety of curious plants and flowers. They have a sort of briar, growing something like the sarsaparilla. The berry of this is as big as a pea, and as round, the seed being of a bright crimson color. It is very hard, and finely polished by nature, so that it might be put to diverse ornamental uses, as necklaces are, &c.

There are several woods, plants and earths, which have been fit for the dying of curious colors. They have the pucc.o.o.n and musquaspen, two roots, with which the Indians use to paint themselves red. And a berry, which grows upon a wild briar, dyes a handsome blue. There is the sumac and the sa.s.safras, which make a deep yellow. Mr. Heriot tells us of several others which he found at Pamtego, and gives the Indian names of them; but that language being not understood by the Virginians, I am not able to distinguish which he means. Particularly he takes notice of wasebur, an herb; chapacour, a root; and tangomockonominge, a bark.

There's the snake root, so much admired in England for a cordial, and for being a great antidote in all pestilential distempers.

There's the rattlesnake root, to which no remedy was ever yet found comparable; for it effectually cures the bite of a rattlesnake, which sometimes has been mortal in two minutes. If this medicine be early applied, it presently removes the infection, and in two or three hours restores the patient to as perfect health as if he had never been hurt.

The Jamestown weed (which resembles the th.o.r.n.y apple of Peru, and I take to be the plant so called) is supposed to be one of the greatest coolers in the world. This being an early plant, was gathered very young for a boiled salad, by some of the soldiers sent thither to quell the rebellion of Bacon; and some of them eat plentifully of it, the effect of which was a very pleasant comedy; for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another stark naked was sitting up in a corner, like a monkey, grinning and making mows at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and snear in their faces, with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll. In this frantic condition they were confined, lest they should in their folly destroy themselves; though it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed, they were not very cleanly, for they would have wallowed in their own excrements if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after eleven days returned to themselves again, not remembering anything that had pa.s.sed.

Perhaps this was the same herb that Mark Antony's army met with in his retreat from the Parthian war and siege of Phraata, when such as had eaten thereof employed themselves with much earnestness and industry in grubbing up stones, and removing them from one place to another, as if it had been a business of the greatest consequence. Wine, as the story says, was found a sovereign remedy for it, which is likely enough, the malignity of this herb being cold.

Of spontaneous flowers they have an unknown variety: the finest crown imperial in the world; the cardinal flower, so much extolled for its scarlet color, is almost in every branch; the moccasin flower, and a thousand others not yet known to English herbalists. Almost all the year round the levels and vales are beautified with flowers of one kind or other, which make their woods as fragrant as a garden. From the materials, their wild bees make vast quant.i.ties of honey, but their magazines are very often rifled by bears, racc.o.o.ns, and such like liquorish vermin.

About the year 1701, walking out to take the air, I found, a little without my pasture fence, a flower as big as a tulip, and upon a stalk resembling the stalk of a tulip. The flower was of a flesh color, having a down upon one end, while the other was plain. The form of it resembled the pudenda of a man and woman lovingly joined in one. Not long after I had discovered this rarity, and while it was still in bloom, I drew a grave gentleman, about an hundred yards out of his way, to see this curiosity, not telling him anything more than that it was a rarity, and such perhaps as he had never seen nor heard of. When we arrived at the place, I gathered one of them, and put it into his hand, which he had no sooner cast his eye upon, but he threw it away with indignation, as being ashamed of this waggery of nature. It was impossible to persuade him to touch it again, or so much as to squint towards so immodest a representation. Neither would I presume to mention such an indecency, but that I thought it unpardonable to omit a production so extraordinary.

There is also found the fine tulip-bearing laurel tree, which has the pleasantest smell in the world, and keeps blossoming and seeding several months together. It delights much in gravelly branches of chrystal streams, and perfumes the very woods with its odor. So also do the large tulip tree, which we call a poplar, the locust, which resembles much the jasmine, and the perfuming crab tree, during their season. With one sort or other of these, as well as many other sweet-flowering trees not named, the vales are almost everywhere adorned, and yield a surprising variety to divert the traveler.

They find a world of medicinal plants likewise in that country, and amongst the rest the planters pretend to have a swamp-root, which infallibly cures all fevers and agues. The bark of the sa.s.safras tree and wild cherry tree have been experimented to partake very much of the virtue of the cortex peruviana. The bark of the root, of that which we call the p.r.i.c.kly ash, being dried and powdered, has been found to be a specific in old ulcers and long running sores. Infinite is the number of other valuable vegetables of every kind; but natural history not having been my study, I am unwilling to do wrong to my subject by an unskillful description.

-- 19. Several kinds of the creeping vines bearing fruit, the Indians planted in their gardens or fields, because they would have plenty of them always at hand; such as muskmelons, watermelons, pompions, cushaws, mac.o.c.ks and gourds.

1. Their muskmelons resemble the large Italian kind, and generally fill four or five quarts.

2. Their watermelons were much more large, and of several kinds, distinguished by the color of their meat and seed; some are red, some yellow, and others white meated; and so of the seed, some are yellow, some red, and some black; but these are never of different colors in the same melon. This fruit the Muscovites call arpus; the Turks and Tartars karpus, because they are extremely cooling.

The Persians call them hindnanes, because they had the first seed of them from the Indies. They are excellently good, and very pleasant to the taste, as also to the eye; having the rind of a lively green color, streaked and watered, the meat of a carnation, and the seed black and shining, while it lies in the melon.

3. Their pompions I need not describe, but must say they are much larger and finer than any I ever heard of in England.

4. Their cushaws are a kind of pompion, of a bluish green color, streaked with white, when they are fit for use. They are larger than the pompions, and have a long narrow neck. Perhaps this may be the ecushaw of T. Harriot.

5. Their mac.o.c.ks are a sort of melopepones, or lesser sort of pompion or cushaw. Of these they have great variety; but the Indian name mac.o.c.k serves for all, which name is still retained among them. Yet the clypeatae are sometimes called cymnels, (as are some others also,) from the lenten cake of that name, which many of them very much resemble. Squash, or squanter-squash, is their name among the northern Indians, and so they are called in New York and New England. These being boiled whole, when the apple is young, and the sh.e.l.l tender, and dished with cream or b.u.t.ter, relish very well with all sorts of butcher's meat, either fresh or salt. And whereas the pompion is never eaten till it be ripe, these are never eaten after they are ripe.

6. The Indians never eat the gourds, but plant them for other uses. Yet the Persians, who likewise abound with this sort of fruit, eat the cucurbita lagenaris, which they call kabach, boiling it while it is green, before it comes to its full maturity, for when it is ripe the rind dries, and grows as hard as the bark of a tree, and the meat within is so consumed and dried away, that there is then nothing left but the seed, which the Indians take clean out, and afterwards use the sh.e.l.ls, instead of flagons and cups, as is done also in several other parts of the world.

7. The marac.o.c.k, which is the fruit of what we call the pa.s.sion flower, our natives did not take the pains to plant, having enough of it growing everywhere, though they often eat it; this fruit is about the size of a pullet's egg.

-- 20. Besides all these, our natives had originally amongst them Indian corn, peas, beans, potatoes and tobacco.

This Indian corn was the staff of food upon which the Indians did ever depend; for when sickness, bad weather, war, or any other ill accident kept them from hunting, fishing and fowling, this, with the addition of some peas, beans, and such other fruits of the earth, as were then in season, was the family's dependence, and the support of their women and children.

There are four sorts of Indian corn: two of which are early ripe, and two late ripe, all growing in the same manner; every single grain of this when planted produces a tall upright stalk, which has several ears hanging on the sides of it, from six to ten inches long. Each ear is wrapt up in a cover of many folds, to protect it from the injuries of the weather. In every one of these ears are several rows of grain, set close to one another, with no other part.i.tion but of a very thin husk.

So that oftentimes the increase of this grain amounts to above a thousand for one.

The two sorts which are early ripe, are distinguished only by the size, which shows itself as well in the grain as in the ear and the stalk.

There is some difference also in the time of ripening.

The lesser size of early ripe corn yields an ear not much larger than the handle of a case knife, and grows upon a stalk between three and four feet high. Of this may be made two crops in a year, and perhaps there might be heat enough in England to ripen it.

The larger sort differs from the former only in largeness, the ear of this being seven or eight inches long, as thick as a child's leg, and growing upon a stalk nine or ten feet high. This is fit for eating about the latter end of June, whereas the smaller sort (generally speaking) affords ears fit to roast by the middle of June. The grains of both these sorts are as plump and swelled as if the skin were ready to burst.

The late ripe corn is diversified by the shape of the grain only, without any respect to the accidental differences in color, some being blue, some red, some yellow, some white, and some streaked. That therefore which makes the distinction, is the plumpness or shriveling of the grain; the one looks as smooth and as full as the early ripe corn, and this they call flint corn; the other has a larger grain, and looks shriveled, with a dent on the back of the grain, as if it had never come to perfection; and this they call she corn. This is esteemed by the planters as the best for increase, and is universally chosen by them for planting; yet I can't see but that this also produces the flint corn, accidentally among the other.

All these sorts are planted alike in rows, three, four or five grains in a hill; the larger sort at four or five feet distance, the lesser sort nearer. The Indians used to give it one or two weedings, and make a hill about it, and so the labor was done. They likewise plant a bean in the same hill with the corn, upon whose stalk it sustains itself.

The Indians sowed peas sometimes in the intervals of the rows of corn, but more generally in a patch of ground by themselves. They have an unknown variety of them, (but all of a kidney shape,) some of which I have met with wild; but whence they had their Indian corn I can give no account; for I don't believe that it was spontaneous in those parts.

Their potatoes are either red or white, about as long as a boy's leg, and sometimes as long and big as both the leg and thigh of a young child, and very much resembling it in shape. I take these kinds to be the same with those which are represented in the herbals to be Spanish potatoes. I am sure those called English or Irish potatoes are nothing like these, either in shape, color or taste. The way of propagating potatoes there, is by cutting the small ones to pieces, and planting the cuttings in hills of loose earth; but they are so tender, that it is very difficult to preserve them in the winter, for the least frost coming at them, rots and destroys them, and therefore people bury 'em under ground, near the fire-hearth, all the winter, until the time comes that their seedings are to be set.

How the Indians ordered their tobacco I am not certain, they now depending chiefly upon the English for what they smoke; but I am informed they used to let it all run to seed, only succoring the leaves to keep the sprouts from growing upon, and starving them; and when it was ripe they pulled off the leaves, cured them in the sun, and laid them up for use. But the planters make a heavy bustle with it now, and can't please the market neither.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE FISH.

-- 21. As for fish, both of fresh and salt water, of sh.e.l.l fish, and others, no country can boast of more variety, greater plenty, or of better in their several kinds.

In the spring of the year herrings come up in such abundance into their brooks and fords to sp.a.w.n, that it is almost impossible to ride through without treading on them. Thus do those poor creatures expose their own lives to some hazard, out of their care to find a more convenient reception for their young, which are not yet alive. Thence it is that at this time of the year the freshes of the rivers, like that of the Broadruck, stink of fish.

Besides these herrings, there come up likewise into the freshes from the sea mult.i.tudes of shad, rock, sturgeon, and some few lampreys, which fasten themselves to the shad, as the remora of Imperatus is said to do to the shark of Tiburone. They continue their stay there about three months. The shads at their first coming up are fat and fleshy; but they waste so extremely in milting and sp.a.w.ning, that at their going down they are poor, and seem fuller of bones, only because they have less flesh. It is upon this account (I suppose) that those in the Severn, which in Gloucester they call twaits, are said at first to want those intermusculary bones, which afterwards they abound with. As these are in the freshes, so the salts afford at certain times of the year many other kinds of fish in infinite shoals, such as the old-wife, a fish not much unlike an herring, and the sheep's-head, a sort of fish, which they esteem in the number of their best.

-- 22. There is likewise great plenty of other fish all the summer long; and almost in every part of the rivers and brooks, there are found of different kinds. Wherefore I shall not pretend to give a detail of them, but venture to mention the names only of such as I have eaten and seen myself, and so leave the rest to those that are better skilled in natural history. However, I may add, that besides all those that I have met with myself, I have heard of a great many very good sorts, both in the salts and freshes; and such people, too, as have not always spent their time in that country, have commended them to me beyond any they had ever eaten before.

Those which I know of myself I remember by the names of herring, rock, sturgeon, shad, old-wife, sheep's-head, black and red drum, trout, taylor, green-fish, sun-fish, ba.s.s, chub, place, flounder, whiting, fatback, maid, wife, small-turtle, crab, oyster, mussel, c.o.c.kle, shrimp, needle-fish, breme, carp, pike, jack, mullet, eel, conger-eel, perch, and cat, &c.

Those which I remember to have seen there, of the kinds that are not eaten, are the whale, porpus, shark, dog-fish, garr, stingray, thornback, saw-fish, toad-fish, frog-fish, land-crab, fiddler, and periwinckle. One day as I was hauling a sein upon the salts, I caught a small fish about two inches and an half long, in shape something resembling a scorpion, but of a dirty, dark color. I was a little shy of handling it, though I believe there was no hurt in it. This I judge to be that fish which Mr. Purchase in his Pilgrims, and Captain Smith in his General History, page 125, affirm to be extremely like St. George's Dragon, except only that it wants feet and wings. Governor Spotswood has one of them dried in full shape.

-- 23. Before the arrival of the English there the Indians had fish in such vast plenty, that the boys and girls would take a pointed stick and strike the lesser sort as they swam upon the flats. The larger fish, that kept in deeper water, they were put to a little more difficulty to take. But for these they made weirs, that is, a hedge of small riv'd sticks, or reeds, of the thickness of a man's finger. These they wove together in a row, with straps of green oak, or other tough wood, so close that the small fish could not pa.s.s through. Upon high water mark they pitched one end of this hedge, and the other they extended into the river, to the depth of eight or ten feet, fastening it with stakes, making cods out from the hedge on one side almost at the end, and leaving a gap for the fish to go into them, which were contrived so that the fish could easily find their pa.s.sage into those cods when they were at the gap, but not see their way out again when they were in. Thus, if they offered to pa.s.s through, they were taken.

Sometimes they made such a hedge as this quite across a creek at high water, and at low would go into the run, then contracted into a narrow stream, and take out what fish they pleased.

At the falls of the rivers, where the water is shallow, and the current strong, the Indians use another kind of weir, thus made: They make a dam of loose stone, whereof there is plenty at hand, quite across the river, leaving one, two or more s.p.a.ces or tunnels for the water to pa.s.s through; at the mouth of which they set a pot of reeds, wove in form of a cone, whose base is about three feet, and perpendicular ten, into which the swiftness of the current carries the fish, and there lodges them.

The Indian way of catching sturgeon, when they came into the narrow part of the rivers, was by a man's clapping a noose over their tails, and by keeping fast his hold. Thus a fish finding itself entangled would flounce, and often pull the man under water, and then that man was counted a c.o.c.karouse, or brave fellow, that would not let go; till with swimming, wading and diving, he had tired the sturgeon, and brought it ash.o.r.e. These sturgeons would also often leap into their canoes in crossing the river, as many of them do still every year into the boats of the English.

They have also another way of fishing like those on the Euxine sea, by the help of a blazing fire by night. They make a hearth in the middle of their canoe, raising it within two inches of the edge; upon this they lay their burning lightwood, split into small shivers, each splinter whereof will blaze and burn, end for end, like a candle: 'Tis one man's work to attend his fire and keep it flaming. At each end of the canoe stands an Indian, with a gig or pointed spear, setting the canoe forward, with the b.u.t.t end of the spear, as gently as he can, by that means stealing upon the fish without any noise, or disturbing of the water. Then they with great dexterity dart these spears into the fish, and so take them. Now there is a double convenience in the blaze of this fire, for it not only dazzles the eyes of the fish, which will lie still, glaring upon it, but likewise discovers the bottom of the river clearly to the fisherman, which the daylight does not.

The following print, I may justly affirm to be a very true representation of the Indian fishery.