ABSTRACT
The best illustration of the condition of the island when occupied by the English is furnished by the fact that hides formed the first article of export. Cocoa and a few other minor articles had been cultivated by the Spaniards, but the vast plains in the lowlands were for the most part covered with herds of cattle; while not only on the plains, but in the mountains, innumerable quantities of hogs were found. The reckless manner in which the horned cattle were destroyed by the first soldiers soon diminished the supply of food; and hides, though long after spoken of as large and good,1
were not exported in any considerable quantity after the first few years. As soon as the government of the island was established on a firm basis, attention was drawn to the excellent quality of the pasturage, and cattle soon received a proper share of attention from the early settlers, who were not long in discovering that they not only throve better, but were larger than in the plantations of North America.2 One thousand to twelve hundred pounds is mentioned as the common weight of a full grown ox.3 Modyford was somewhat extravagant when, in his “View of the Condition of Jamaica,” published in the appendix to the first volume of the “Journals of the Assembly,” he refers to the cattle as being numerous, but adds that they are “not enough by millions.” Still, as the interior forests were then undisturbed, and rain was consequently far more abundant than now, the lowland pastures must have conveyed the impression of inexhaustible fertility. The hogs were highly valued, as being better tasted and more digestible than those in the mother country.4 They were kept on plantations, but far more were wild in the woods. Numbers of old soldiers
found a congenial occupation, after their discharge, in hunting them.5 The sport was sufficiently exciting, for when unable to evade the hunters and their dogs, the hogs were accustomed to come to bay, with their rear well protected by a rock or large forest tree, and could only be destroyed by lances or a welldirected shot. The animal was then cut open, the bones and entrails removed, and the flesh, being gashed in several places, was well salted, and either dried in the sun or over a slow fire, as was the custom of the buccaneers. Occasionally horned cattle in a wild state were found in the woods: these were similarly treated. Sheep soon began to multiply, though it was observed that their fleece was of little value.1 Goats were still more abundant. Almost every kind of domestic fowl increased abundantly, especially in the little farms, called palenques. Guinea hens, and a great variety of ducks, teal, pigeons, &c., filled the woods.2 At Pigeon Island, in Old Harbour Bay, the birds were so abundant that a couple of men in a canoe were able in a few hours to load it to the water edge with those they knocked down. These primitive battues soon exhausted the supply.3 But the interior woods and the lagoons long continued to furnish game, nor is the supply, though diminished, yet exhausted. The fish, which through the neglect of any means for preserving it, is now failing in all but a few interior mountain streams, was in those early days abundant. A very striking illustration of this is given by Sir Hans Sloane. Visiting Sir Francis Watson, at Seven Plantations, by the banks of the Rio Minho, below the spot where in dry seasons the river is lost beneath the sand, he found that in the rainy weather immense numbers of mullet and other fishes were swept down. As the river again sunk, these were left in the little pools, and though immense numbers were taken by the people around, or devoured by birds, enough
would remain to taint the air as the pools dried up. “I was sensible of this corrupted air when I was here,” is the assertion of this great naturalist.
