the provisions and so made sure the food was reasonably palatable, the lit-
tle ships could carry only a small amount of food and water.
Water for the trip had to be procured from rivers which flowed down to
the ports of departure and to which the inhabitants of all the riverside
towns had contributed their garbage and excrement. Put into barrels, river
water was sure to become stagnant and covered with slime. During his
crossing in 1612, George Percy found the water “so stencheous thatt onely
washeinge my hands there wth I cold nott endure the sentt thereof.” Even
ashore prudent people in the seventeenth century hardly touched water
except to bathe, which they did rarely. Their favorite drink was beer.
Beer was safer, but even in stout kegs it could not be completely pro-
tected aboard a ship; worse, only a limited amount could be afforded or
carried, so the supply would be exhausted on very long trips. The crew and
passengers of an average-size ship on a three-month trip were expected to
drink 3,500 gallons of beer. Much as they hated to drink water, the ship
also carried about 1,500 gallons of it. Ships could hardly carry more. In
fact, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock because they had run out
of beer.
Running out of beer or water was lethal but could not necessarily be
avoided, since the length of a trip was decided by weather. Just getting started
was completely unpredictable. A ship might spend weeks swaying at anchor
while waiting for favorable winds. Once under way, it faced months at sea—
how many, no one could foresee. The Dovetook only two months plus lay-
overs at Barbados and Saint Christopher to reach Maryland; but in 1670
another ship, fitted out in part by the young philosopher John Locke, took
seven months.
Three or four or even seven months—that is, if the voyagers were lucky.
The last part of the trip, where the warm waters of the Gulf Stream collided
with colder waters off Cape Hatteras, was known as a ship killer. Storms
there were often so violent as to dismast ships, tear their rudders from the
moorings, rip the sails apart, smash lifeboats and cabins, and cave in decks
and hulls. William Strachey described “a most terrible and vehement
storme, which was the taile of the West Indian Huracano... so violent that
men could scarce stand upon the Deckes, neither could any man heare
another speake.” It was that Atlantic which inspired Shakespeare’s play The
Tempest.
32 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA