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.
THE UNHEALTHFUL LOCATION
I have often spoken of the unwillingness of some of our people to
labor; but Captain Smith, who is not overly eager to find excuses
for those who are indolent, has said that there was much reason
why many of our men hugged their cabins, counting it a most arduous
task to go even so far up the river as were the oyster beds.
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