with their
primitive weapons, were no match for them, but woe to any of their
number that strayed far from the fort, or ventured into the long grass
of the mainland. So frequently were small parties cut off, that it
became unsafe for the English to leave their settlements except in
bodies large enough to repel any attack.[68]

The epidemics and the wars with the Indians conspired to bring upon the
colony still another horrible scourge. The constant dread of attack in
the fields and the almost universal sickness made it impossible for the
settlers to raise crops sufficient for their needs. During the summer of
1607 there were at one time scarce five able men at Jamestown, and these
found it beyond their power even to nurse the sick and bury the dead.
And in later years, when corn was planted in abundance, the stealthy
savages often succeeded in cutting it down before it could be harvested.
There can be no surprise then that famines came at frequent intervals to
add to the misery of the ill-fated colonists. The most terrible of these
visited Virginia in the winter of 1609-10. Smith's Historie gives a
graphic account of the suffering during those fearful months. Those that
escaped starvation were preserved, it says, "for the most part, by
roots, herbes, acornes, walnuts, berries, now and then a fish: they that
had starch in these extremities, made no small use of it; yea, even the
very skinnes of our horses. Nay, so great was our famine, that a Salvage
we slew and buried, the poorer sort took him up againe and eat him; and
so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbs: And
one amongst the rest did kill his wife, powdered her, and had eaten part
of her before it was knowne; for which hee was executed, as hee well
deserved.... This was the time, which to this day we call the starving
time; it were too vile to say, and scarce to be believed, what we
endured."[69]

The misery of the wretched settlers in time of famine is vividly
described in a letter written in 1623 by a servant to his parents. The
people, he said, cried out day and night, "Oh that they were in England
without their limbs ... though they begged from door to door". He
declared that he had eaten more at home in a day than was now allowed
him in a week, and that his parents had often given more than his
present day's allowance to a beggar at the door. Unless the ship _Sea
Flower_ came soon, with supplies, his master's men would have but half a