ur commanders, officers and salvages daily consumed
them, some small proportions sometimes we tasted, till all was
devoured; then swords, arms, pieces or anything was traded with the
salvages, whose cruell fingers were so oft imbrued in our blouds,
that what by their crueltie, our Governor's indiscretion, and the
losse of our ships, of five hundred within six months after Capt.
Smith's departure, there remained not past sixty men, women and
children, most miserable and poore creatures; and those were
preserved for the most part, by roots, herbes, acorns, walnuts,
berries, now and then a little 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 again 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, poudered her and had eaten part
of her before it was knowne, for which he was executed, as he well
deserved; now whether she was better roasted, boyled, or carbonaded,
I know not, but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of.
This was that time, which still to this day we called the starving
time; it were too vile to say and scarce to be believed what we
endured; but the occasion was our owne, for want of providence,
industrie and government, and not the barreness and defect of the
country as is generally supposed."

This playful allusion to powdered wife, and speculation as to how she
was best cooked, is the first instance we have been able to find of
what is called "American humor," and Captain Smith has the honor of
being the first of the "American humorists" who have handled subjects
of this kind with such pleasing gayety.

It is to be noticed that this horrible story of cannibalism and
wife-eating appears in Smith's "General Historie" of 1624, without a
word of contradiction or explanation, although the company as early as
1610 had taken pains to get at the facts, and Smith must have seen
their "Declaration," which supposes the story was started by enemies
of the colony. Some reported they saw it, some that Captain Smith
said so, and some that one Beadle, the lieutenant of Captain Davis,
did relate it. In "A True Declaration of the State of the Colonie in
Virginia," published by the advice and direction of the Council of
Virginia, London, 1610, we read:

"But to clear all doubt,