Next day, when Master Wingfield and his following came in, none the
better for having gone to Powhatan's village, all understood that it
would have been wiser had they listened to my master when he counseled
them to take exercise at arms, and straightway all the men were set
about making a fort with a palisade, which last is the name for a fence
built of logs set on end, side by side, in the ground, and rising so
high that the enemy may not climb over it. This work took all the time
of the laborers until the summer was gone, and in the meanwhile the
gentlemen made use of the stores left us by the fleet, until there
remained no more than one half pint of wheat to each man for a day's
food.
The savages strove by day and by night to murder us, till it was no
longer safe to go in search of oysters or wildfowl, and from wheat which
had lain so long in the holds of the ships that nearly every grain in it
had a worm, did we get our only nourishment.
The labor of building the palisade was most grievous, and it was not
within the power of man to continue it while eating such food; therefore
the sickness came upon us, when it was as if all had been condemned to
die.