However, I must set this much down as counting in our favor: when we
landed in this country we had three pigs, and a cock and six hens, all
of which we turned loose in the wilderness to shift for themselves,
giving shelter to such as came back to us when winter was near at hand.
Within two years we had of pigs more than sixty, in addition to many
which were yet running wild in the forest. Of hens and cocks we had
upward of five hundred, the greater number being kept in pens to the end
that we might profit by their eggs.
I have heard Master Hunt declare more than once, that had we followed
Captain Smith's advice, giving all our labor to the raising of crops,
our storehouse would have been too small for the food on hand, and we
might have held ourselves free from the whims of the savages, having
corn to sell, rather than spending near to half our time trying to buy.
As Master Hunt said again and again when talking over the situation
with Captain Smith, it seemed strange even to us who were there, that
we could be looking forward to a famine, when in the sea and on the land
was food in abundance to feed half the people in all this wide world.
To show how readily one might get himself a dinner, if so be his taste
were not too nice, I have seen Captain Smith, when told what we had in
the larder for the next meal, go to the river with only his naked sword,
and there spear fish enough with the weapon to provide us with as much
as could be eaten in a full day. But yet some of our gentlemen claimed
that it was not good for their blood to eat this food of the sea; others
declared that oysters, when partaken of regularly, were as poisonous as
the sweet potatoes which we bought of the Indians.
Thus it was that day by day did we who were in the land of plenty,
overrun with that which would serve as food, fear that another time of
famine was nigh.