Part 23 (1/2)

OF THE DISEASES INCIDENT TO VIRGINIA.

-- 82. While we are upon the climate, and its accidents, it will not be improper to mention the diseases incident to Virginia. Distempers come not there by choaking up the spirits, with a foggy and thick air, as in some northern climes; nor by a stifling heat, that exhales the vigor of those that dwell in a more southerly lat.i.tude: but by a willful and foolish indulging themselves in those pleasures, which in a warm and fruitful country, nature lavishes upon mankind, for their happiness, and not for their destruction.

Thus I have seen persons impatient of heat, lie almost naked upon the cold gra.s.s in the shades, and there, often forgetting themselves, fall asleep. Nay, many are so imprudent, as to do this in an evening, and perhaps lie so all night; when between the clew from heaven, and the damps from the earth, such impressions are made upon the humors of their body, as occasion fatal distempers.

Thus also have I seen persons put into a great heat by excessive action, and in the midst of that heat, strip off their clothes, and expose their open pores to the air. Nay, I have known some mad enough in this hot condition, to take huge draughts of cold water, or perhaps of milk and water, which they esteem much more cold in operation than water alone.

And thus likewise have I seen several people, (especially new-comers,) so intemperate in devouring the pleasant fruits, that they have fallen into dangerous fluxes and surfeits. These, and such like disorders, are the chief occasions of their diseases.

-- 83. The first sickness that any new-comer happens to have there, he unfairly calls a seasoning, be it fever, ague, or any thing else, that his own folly or excesses bring upon him.

Their intermitting fevers, as well as their agues, are very troublesome, if a fit remedy be not applied; but of late the doctors there have made use of the Cortex Peruviana with success, and find that it seldom or never fails to remove the fits. The planters, too, have several roots natural to the country, which in this case they cry up as infallible; and I have found by many examples a total immersion in cold spring water, just at the accession of the fit an infallible cure.

-- 84. When these damps, colds and disorders affect the body more gently, and do not seize people violently at first; then for want of some timely application, (the planters abhorring all physic, except in desperate cases,) these small disorders are suffered to go on, until they grow into a cachexia, by which the body is overrun with obstinate s...o...b..tic humors. And this in a more fierce, and virulent degree, I take to be the yaws.

-- 85. The gripes is a distemper of the Caribbee islands, not of that country, and seldom gets footing there, and then only upon great provocations; namely, by the intemperance before mentioned, together with an unreasonable use of filthy and unclean drinks. Perhaps too it may come by new unfine cider, perry or peach drink, which the people are impatient to drink before it is ready; or by the excessive use of lime juice, and foul sugar in punch and flip; or else by the constant drinking of uncorrected beer, made of such windy unwholesome things as some people make use of in brewing.

Thus having fairly reckoned up the princ.i.p.al inconveniences of the climate, and the distempers incident to the country, I shall add a chapter of the recreations and amus.e.m.e.nts used there, and proceed to the natural benefits they enjoy. After which, I shall conclude with some hints concerning their trade and improvements.

CHAPTER XXI.

OF THE RECREATIONS AND PASTIMES USED IN VIRGINIA.

-- 86. For their recreation, the plantations, orchards and gardens constantly afford them fragrant and delightful walks. In their woods and fields, they have an unknown variety of vegetables, and other rarities of nature to discover and observe. They have hunting, fis.h.i.+ng and fowling, with which they entertain themselves an hundred ways. There is the most good nature and hospitality practiced in the world, both towards friends and strangers: but the worst of it is, this generosity is attended now and then with a little too much intemperance. The neighborhood is at much the same distance as in the country in England; but the goodness of the roads, and the fairness of the weather, bring people often together.

-- 87. The Indians, as I have already observed, had in their hunting, a way of concealing themselves, and coming up to the deer, under the blind of a stalking head, in imitation of which, many people have taught their horses to stalk it, that is, to walk gently by the huntsman's side, to cover him from the sight of the deer. Others cut down trees for the deer to browse upon, and lie in wait behind them. Others again set stakes, at a certain distance within their fences, where the deer have been used to leap over into a field of peas, which they love extremely; these stakes they so place, as to run into the body of the deer, when he pitches, by which means they impale him; and for a temptation to the leap take down the top part of the fence.

-- 88. They hunt their hares, (which are very numerous,) a foot, with mongrels or swift dogs, which either catch them quickly, or force them to hole in a hollow tree, whither all their hares generally tend when they are closely pursued. As soon as they are thus holed, and have crawled up into the body of the tree, the business is to kindle a fire, and smother them with smoke, till they let go their hold, and fall to the bottom stifled; from whence they take them. If they have a mind to spare their lives, upon turning them loose, they will be as fit as ever to hunt at another time; for the mischief done them by the smoke immediately wears off again.

-- 89. They have another sort of hunting, which is very diverting, and that they call vermin hunting; it is performed a foot, with small dogs in the night, by the light of the moon or stars. Thus in summer time they find abundance of racc.o.o.ns, opossums and foxes in the corn fields, and about their plantations: but at other times they must go into the woods for them. The method is to go out with three or four dogs, and as soon as they come to the place they bid the dogs seek out, and all the company follow immediately. Wherever a dog barks, you may depend upon finding the game; and this alarm draws both men and dogs that way. If this sport be in the woods, the game, by the time you come near it, is perhaps mounted to the top of an high tree, and then they detach a nimble fellow up after it, who must have a scuffle with the beast before he can throw it down to the dogs; and then the sport increases, to see the vermin encounter those little curs. In this sort of hunting, they also carry their great dogs out with them; because wolves, bears, panthers, wild cats, and all other beasts of prey, are abroad in the night.

For wolves they make traps and set guns baited in the woods, so that when he offers to seize the bait, he pulls the trigger, and the gun discharges upon him. What aelian and Pliny write, of the horses being benumed in their legs, if they tread in the track of a wolf, does not hold good here; for I myself, and many others, have rid full speed after wolves in the woods, and have seen live ones taken out of a trap, and dragged at a horse's tail; and yet those that followed on horse back, have not perceived any of their horses to falter in their pace.

-- 90. They have many pretty devices besides the gun to take wild turkeys; and among others, a friend of mine invented a great trap, wherein he at times caught many turkeys, and particularly seventeen at one time; but he could not contrive it so as to let others in, after he had entrapped the first flock, until they were taken out.

-- 91. The Indian invention of weirs in fis.h.i.+ng is mightily improved by the English, besides which they make use of seins, trolls, casting nets, setting nets, hand fis.h.i.+ng and angling, and in each find abundance of diversion. I have sat in the shade at the heads of the rivers angling, and spent as much time in taking the fish off the hook as in waiting for their taking it. Like those of the Euxine sea, they also fish with spilyards, which is a long line staked out in the river, and hung with a great many hooks on short strings, fastened to the main line, about three or four feet asunder, supported by stakes, or buoyed up with gourds. They use likewise the Indian way of striking the light of a fire in the night, as is described in the second book, chapter 5, section 23.

-- 92. Their fowling is answerable to their fis.h.i.+ng for plenty of game in its proper season. Some plantations have a vast variety of it, several sorts of which I have not yet mentioned, as beaver, otter, squirrels, partridges, pigeons, and an infinite number of small birds, &c.

-- 93. The admirable economy of the beavers deserves to be particularly remembered. They cohabit in one house are incorporated in a regular form of government, something like monarchy, and have over them a superintendent, which the Indians call pericu. He leads them out to their several employments, which consist in felling of trees, biting off the branches, and cutting them into certain lengths, suitable to the business they design them for, all which they perform with their teeth.

When this is done, the pericu orders several of his subjects to join together, and take up one of those logs, which they must carry to their house or dam, as occasion requires. He walks in state by them all the while, and sees that every one bears his equal share of the burthen; while he bites with his teeth, and lashes with his tail, those that lag behind, and do not lend all their strength; their way of carriage is upon their tail. They commonly build their houses in swamps, and then to raise the water to a convenient height, they make a dam with logs, and a binding fort of clay, so firm, that though the water runs continually over, it cannot wash it away. Within these dams they'll inclose water enough to make a pool like a mill pond; and if a mill happen to be built on the same stream, below their dam, the miller, in a dry season, finds it worth his while to cut it, to supply his mill with water. Upon which disaster the beavers are so expert at their work, that in one or two nights' time they will repair the breach, and make it perfectly whole again. Sometimes they build their houses in a broad marsh, where the tide ebbs and flows, and then they make no dam at all. The doors into their houses are under water. I have been at the demolis.h.i.+ng of one of these houses, that was found in a marsh, and was surprised to find it fortified with logs, that were six feet long, and ten inches through, and had been carried at least one hundred and fifty yards. This house was three stories high, and contained five rooms, that is to say, two in the lower, two in the middle story, and but one at the top. These creatures have a great deal of policy, and know how to defeat all the subtilty and stratagems of the hunter, who seldom can meet with them, tho' they are in great numbers all over the country.

-- 94. There is yet another kind of sport, which the young people take great delight in, and that is, the hunting of wild horses; which they pursue sometimes with dogs, and sometimes without. You must know they have many horses foaled in the woods of the uplands, that never were in hand, and are as shy as any savage creature. These having no mark upon them, belong to him that first takes them. However, the captor commonly purchases these horses very dear, by spoiling better in the pursuit; in which case he has little to make himself amends, besides the pleasure of the chase. And very often this is all he has for it; for the wild horses are so swift, that 'tis difficult to catch them; and when they are taken, 'tis odds but their grease is melted, or else being old, they are so sullen, that they can't be tamed.

-- 95. The inhabitants are very courteous to travelers, who need no other recommendation, but the being human creatures. A stranger has no more to do, but to enquire upon the road, where any gentleman or good housekeeper lives, and there he may depend upon being received with hospitality. This good nature is so general among their people, that the gentry, when they go abroad, order their princ.i.p.al servant to entertain all visitors, with everything the plantation affords. And the poor planters, who have but one bed, will very often sit up, or lie upon a form or couch all night, to make room for a weary traveler, to repose himself after his journey.