The History of Virginia, in Four Parts

by Robert Beverley

Many of the merchants and others, that go thither from England, make no distinction between a cold and hot country; but wisely go sweltering about in their thick clothes all the summer, because forsooth they used to do so in their northern climate; and then unfairly complain of the heat of the country. They greedily surfeit with their delicious fruits, and are guilty of great intemperance therein, through the exceeding plenty thereof, and liberty given by the inhabitants; by which means they fall sick, and then unjustly complain of the unhealthiness of the country. In the next place, the sailors for want of towns there, were put to the hardship of rolling most of the tobacco, a mile or more, to the water side; this splinters their hands sometimes, and provokes them to curse the country. Such exercise and a bright sun made them hot, and then they imprudently fell to drinking cold water, or perhaps new cider, which, in its season they found in every planter's house; or else they greedily devour the green fruit, and unripe trash they met with, and so fell into fluxes, fevers, and the belly ache; and then, to spare their own indiscretion, they in their tarpaulin language, cry, God d——m the country. This is the true state of the case, as to the complaints of its being sickly; for, by the most impartial observation I can make, if people will be persuaded to be temperate, and take due care of themselves, I believe it is as healthy a country as any under heaven: but the extraordinary pleasantness of the weather, and plenty of the fruit, lead people into many temptations. The clearness and brightness of the sky, add new vigor to their spirits, and perfectly remove all splenetic and sullen thoughts. Here they enjoy all the benefits of a warm sun, and by their shady trees are protected from its inconvenience. Here all their senses are entertained with an endless succession of native pleasures. Their eyes are ravished with the beauties of naked nature. Their ears are serenaded with the perpetual murmur of brooks, and the thorough-base which the wind plays, when it wantons through the trees; the merry birds too, join their pleasing notes to this rural comfort, especially the mock birds, who love society so well, that often when they see mankind, they will perch upon a twig very near them, and sing the sweetest wild airs in the world. But what is most remarkable in these melodious animals, if they see a man take notice of them, they will frequently fly at small distances, warbling out their notes from perch to perch, be it house or tree convenient, and sometimes too fly up, to light on the same again, and by their music make a man forget the fatigues of his mind. Men's taste is regaled with the most delicious fruits, which, without art, they have in great variety and perfection. And then their smell is refreshed with an eternal fragrancy of flowers and sweets, with which nature perfumes and adorns the woods and branches almost the whole year round.

Have you pleasure in a garden? All things thrive in it most surprisingly; you can't walk by a bed of flowers, but besides the entertainment of their beauty, your eyes will be saluted with the charming colors and curiosity of the humming bird, which revels among the flowers, and licks off the dew and honey from their tender leaves, on which it only feeds. Its size is not half so large as an English wren, and its color is a glorious shining mixture of scarlet, green and gold.

§ 80. On the other side, all the annoyances and inconveniences of the country may fairly be summed up, under these three heads, thunder, heat, and troublesome vermin.

I confess, in the hottest part of the summer, they have sometimes very loud and surprising thunder, but rarely any damage happens by it. On the contrary, it is of such advantage to the cooling and refining of the air, that it is oftener wished for than feared. But they have no earthquakes, which the Caribbee islands are so much troubled with.

Their heat is very seldom troublesome, and then only by the accident of a perfect calm, which happens perhaps two or three times in a year, and lasts but a few hours at a time; and even that inconvenience is made easy by cool shades, open airy rooms, summer houses, arbors, and grottos: but the spring and fall afford as pleasant weather as Mahomet promised in his paradise.

All the troublesome vermin that ever I heard anybody complain of, are either frogs, snakes, musquitoes, chinches, seed ticks, or red worms, by some called potato lice. Of all which I shall give an account in their order.

Some people have been so ill informed, as to say, that Virginia is full of toads, though there never yet was seen one toad in it. The marshes, fens, and watery grounds, are indeed full of harmless frogs which do no hurt, except by the noise of their croaking notes: but in the upper parts of the country, where the land is high and dry, they are very scarce. In these swamps and running streams, they have frogs of an incredible bigness, which are called bull frogs, from the roaring they make. Last year I found one of these near a stream of fresh water, of so prodigious a magnitude, that when I extended its legs, I found the distance betwixt them to be seventeen inches and an half. If any are good to eat, these must be the kind.

Some people in England are startled at the very name of the rattle snake, and fancy every corner of that province so much pestered with them, that a man goes in constant danger of his life, that walks abroad in the woods. But this is as gross a mistake, as most of the other ill reports of that country. For in the first place this snake is very rarely seen; and when that happens, it never does the least mischief, unless you offer to disturb it, and thereby provoke it to bite in its own defence. But it never fails to give you fair warning, by making a noise with its rattle, which may be heard at a convenient distance. For my own part I have traveled the country as much as any man in it of my age, by night and by day, above the inhabitants, well as among them; and yet before the first impression of this book I had never seen a rattle snake alive, and at liberty, in all my life. I had seen them indeed after they had been killed, or pent up in boxes to be sent to England. The bite of this viper without some immediate application is certainly death; but remedies are so well known, that none of their servants are ignorant of them. I never knew any killed by these, or any other of their snakes, although I had a general knowledge all over the country, and had been in every part of it. They have several other snakes which are seen more frequently, and have very little or no hurt in them, viz: such as they call black snakes, water snakes, and corn snakes. The black viper snake, and the copper-bellied snake, are said to be as venomous as the rattle snake, but they are as seldom seen; these three poisonous snakes bring forth their young alive, whereas the other three sorts lay eggs, which are hatched afterwards; and that is the distinction they make, esteeming only those to be venomous, which are viviparous. They have likewise the horn snake, so called from a sharp horn it carries in its tail, with which it assaults anything that offends it, with that force, that as it is said it will strike its tail into the butt end of a musket, from which it is not able to disengage itself.

All sorts of snakes will charm both birds and squirrels, and the Indians pretend to charm them. Several persons have seen squirrels run down a tree directly into a snake's mouth; they have likewise seen birds fluttering up and down, and chattering at these snakes, till at last they have dropped down just before them.

In the end of May, 1715, stopping at an orchard by the road side to get some cherries, being three of us in company, we were entertained with the whole process of a charm between a rattle snake and a hare, the hare being better than half grown. It happened thus: one of the company in his search for the best cherries espied the hare sitting, and although he went close by her she did not move, till he, (not suspecting the occasion of her gentleness,) gave her a lash with his whip; this made her run about ten feet, and there sit down again. The gentleman not finding the cherries ripe, immediately returned the same way, and near the place where he struck the hare, he spied a rattle snake; still not suspecting the charm, he goes back about twenty yards to a hedge to get a stick to kill the snake, and at his return found the snake removed, and coiled in the same place from whence he had moved the hare. This put him into immediate thoughts of looking for the hare again, and he soon spied her about ten feet off the snake, in the same place to which she had started when he whipt her. She was now lying down, but would sometimes raise herself on her fore feet struggling as it were for life or to get away, but could never raise her hinder parts from the ground, and then would fall flat on her side again, panting vehemently. In this condition the hare and snake were when he called me; and though we all three came up within fifteen feet of the snake to have a full view of the whole, he took no notice at all of us, nor so much as gave a glance towards us. There we stood at least half an hour, the snake not altering a jot, but the hare often struggling and falling on its side again, till at last the hare lay still as dead for some time. Then the snake moved out of his coil, and slid gently and smoothly on towards the hare, his colors at that instant being ten times more glorious and shining than at other times. As the snake moved along, the hare happened to fetch another struggle, upon which the snake made a stop, laying at his length, till the hare had lain quiet again for a short space; and then he advanced again till he came up to the hinder parts of the hare, which in all this operation had been towards the snake; there he made a survey all over the hare, raising part of his body above it, then turned off and went to the head and nose of the hare, after that to the ears, took the ears in his mouth one after the other, working each apart in his mouth as a man does a wafer to moisten it, then returned to the nose again, and took the face into his mouth, straining and gathering his lips sometimes by one side of his mouth, sometimes by the other; at the shoulders he was a long time puzzled, often hauling and stretching the hare out at length, and straining forward first one side of his mouth then the other, till at last he got the whole body into his throat. Then we went to him, and taking the twist band off from my hat, I made a noose and put it about his neck. This made him at length very furious, but we having secured him, put him into one end of a wallet, and carried him on horseback five miles to Mr. John Baylor's house, where we lodged that night, with a design to have sent him to Dr. Cock, at Williamsburg; but Mr. Baylor was so careful of his slaves that he would not let him be put into his boat, for fear he should get loose and mischief them; therefore, the next morning we killed him, and took the hare out of his belly. The head of the hare began to be digested and the hair falling off, having lain about eighteen hours in the snake's belly.