Strengthening the Fort

Next day, when Master Wingfield and his following came in, none the better for having gone to Powhatan's village, all understood that it would have been wiser had they listened to my master when he counseled them to take exercise at arms, and straightway all the men were set about making a fort with a palisade, which last is the name for a fence built of logs set on end, side by side, in the ground, and rising so high that the enemy may not climb over it.

This work took all the time of the laborers until the summer was gone, and in the meanwhile the gentlemen made use of the stores left us by the fleet, until there remained no more than one half pint of wheat to each man for a day's food.

The savages strove by day and by night to murder us, till it was no longer safe to go in search of oysters or wildfowl, and from wheat which had lain so long in the holds of the ships that nearly every grain in it had a worm, did we get our only nourishment.

The labor of building the palisade was most grievous, and it was not within the power of man to continue it while eating such food; therefore the sickness came upon us, when it was as if all had been condemned to die.