The Bermudas

by Washington Irving

　　A SHAKSPERIAN RESEARCH: BY THE AUTHOR OF THE SKETCHBOOK.

　　"Who did not think, till within these foure yeares, but that theseislands had been rather a habitation for Divells, than fit for men todwell in? Who did not hate the name, when hee was on land, and shun theplace when he was on the seas? But behold the misprision and conceits ofthe world! For true and large experience hath now told us, it is one ofthe sweetest paradises that be upon earth."--"A PLAINE DESCRIPT. OF THEBARMUDAS:" 1613.

　　In the course of a voyage home from England, our ship had beenstruggling, for two or three weeks, with perverse headwinds, and astormy sea. It was in the month of May, yet the weather had at timesa wintry sharpness, and it was apprehended that we were in theneighborhood of floating islands of ice, which at that season of theyear drift out of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and sometimes occasion thewreck of noble ships.Wearied out by the continued opposition of the elements, our captain atlength bore away to the south, in hopes of catching the expiring breathof the trade-winds, and making what is called the southern passage. Afew days wrought, as it were, a magical "sea change" in every thingaround us. We seemed to emerge into a different world. The late dark andangry sea, lashed up into roaring and swashing surges, became calm andsunny; the rude winds died away; and gradually a light breeze sprang updirectly aft, filling out every sail, and wafting us smoothly along onan even keel. The air softened into a bland and delightful temperature.Dolphins began to play about us; the nautilus came floating by, like afairy ship, with its mimic sail and rainbow tints; and flying-fish, fromtime to time, made their short excursive flights, and occasionally fellupon the deck. The cloaks and overcoats in which we had hitherto wrappedourselves, and moped about the vessel, were thrown aside; for a summerwarmth had succeeded to the late wintry chills. Sails were stretched asawnings over the quarter-deck, to protect us from the mid-day sun. Underthese we lounged away the day, in luxurious indolence, musing, withhalf-shut eyes, upon the quiet ocean. The night was scarcely lessbeautiful than the day. The rising moon sent a quivering column ofsilver along the undulating surface of the deep, and, gradually climbingthe heaven, lit up our towering top-sails and swelling main-sails, andspread a pale, mysterious light around. As our ship made her whisperingway through this dreamy world of waters, every boisterous sound on boardwas charmed to silence; and the low whistle, or drowsy song of a sailorfrom the forecastle, or the tinkling of a guitar, and the soft warblingof a female voice from the quarter-deck, seemed to derive a witchingmelody from the scene and hour. I was reminded of Oberon's exquisitedescription of music and moonlight on the ocean:

　　--"Thou rememberestSince once I sat upon a promontory,And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back,Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,That the rude sea grew civil at her song?And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,To hear the sea-maid's music."

　　Indeed, I was in the very mood to conjure up all the imaginary beingswith which poetry has peopled old ocean, and almost ready to fancyI heard the distant song of the mermaid, or the mellow shell of thetriton, and to picture to myself Neptune and Amphitrite with all theirpageant sweeping along the dim horizon.A day or two of such fanciful voyaging brought us in sight of theBermudas, which first looked like mere summer clouds, peering above thequiet ocean. All day we glided along in sight of them, with just windenough to fill our sails; and never did land appear more lovely. Theywere clad in emerald verdure, beneath the serenest of skies: not anangry wave broke upon their quiet shores, and small fishing craft,riding on the crystal waves, seemed as if hung in air. It was such ascene that Fletcher pictured to himself, when he extolled the halcyonlot of the fisherman:

　　Ah! would thou knewest how much it better wereTo bide among the simple fisher-swains:No shrieking owl, no night-crow lodgeth here,Nor is our simple pleasure mixed with pains.Our sports begin with the beginning year;In calms, to pull the leaping fish to land,In roughs, to sing and dance along the yellow sand.

　　In contemplating these beautiful islands, and the peaceful seaaround them, I could hardly realize that these were the "still vexedBermoothes" of Shakspeare, once the dread of mariners, and infamous inthe narratives of the early discoverers, for the dangers and disasterswhich beset them. Such, however, was the case; and the islands derivedadditional interest in my eyes, from fancying that I could trace intheir early history, and in the superstitious notions connected withthem, some of the elements of Shakspeare's wild and beautiful drama ofthe Tempest. I shall take the liberty of citing a few historical facts,in support of this idea, which may claim some additional attention fromthe American reader, as being connected with the first settlement ofVirginia.At the time when Shakspeare was in the fulness of his talent, andseizing upon everything that could furnish aliment to his imagination,the colonization of Virginia was a favorite object of enterprise amongpeople of condition in England, and several of the courtiers of thecourt of Queen Elizabeth were personally engaged in it. In the year1609 a noble armament of nine ships and five hundred men sailed for therelief of the colony. It was commanded by Sir George Somers, as admiral,a gallant and generous gentleman, above sixty years of age, andpossessed of an ample fortune, yet still bent upon hardy enterprise, andambitious of signalizing himself in the service of his country.On board of his flag-ship, the Sea-Vulture, sailed also Sir ThomasGates, lieutenant-general of the colony. The voyage was long andboisterous. On the twenty-fifth of July, the admiral's ship wasseparated from the rest, in a hurricane. For several days she was drivenabout at the mercy of the elements, and so strained and racked, that herseams yawned open, and her hold was half filled with water. The stormsubsided, but left her a mere foundering wreck. The crew stood in thehold to their waists in water, vainly endeavoring to bail her withkettles, buckets, and other vessels. The leaks rapidly gained on them,while their strength was as rapidly declining. They lost all hope ofkeeping the ship afloat, until they should reach the American coast; andwearied with fruitless toil, determined, in their despair, to give upall farther attempt, shut down the hatches, and abandon themselves toProvidence. Some, who had spirituous liquors, or "comfortable waters,"as the old record quaintly terms them, brought them forth, and sharedthem with their comrades, and they all drank a sad farewell to oneanother, as men who were soon to part company in this world.In this moment of extremity, the worthy admiral, who kept sleeplesswatch from the high stern of the vessel, gave the thrilling cry of"land!" All rushed on deck, in a frenzy of joy, and nothing now was tobe seen or heard on board, but the transports of men who felt as ifrescued from the grave. It is true the land in sight would not, inordinary circumstances, have inspired much self-gratulation. It could benothing else but the group of islands called after their discoverer, oneJuan Bermudas, a Spaniard, but stigmatized among the mariners of thosedays as "the islands of devils!" "For the islands of the Bermudas," saysthe old narrative of this voyage, "as every man knoweth that hath heardor read of them, were never inhabited by any Christian or heathenpeople, but were ever esteemed and reputed a most prodigious andinchanted place, affording nothing but gusts, stormes, and foul weather,which made every navigator and mariner to avoide them, as Scylla andCharybdis, or as they would shun the Divell himself."[Footnote: "APlaine Description of the Barmudas."]Sir George Somers and his tempest-tossed comrades, however, hailed themwith rapture, as if they had been a terrestrial paradise. Every sail wasspread, and every exertion made to urge the foundering ship to land.Before long, she struck upon a rock. Fortunately, the late stormy windshad subsided, and there was no surf. A swelling wave lifted her from offthe rock, and bore her to another; and thus she was borne on from rockto rock, until she remained wedged between two, as firmly as if set uponthe stocks. The boats were immediately lowered, and, though the shorewas above a mile distant, the whole crew were landed in safety.Every one had now his task assigned him. Some made all haste to unloadthe ship, before she should go to pieces; some constructed wigwams ofpalmetto leaves, and others ranged the island in quest of wood andwater. To their surprise and joy, they found it far different from thedesolate and frightful place they had been taught, by seamen's stories,to expect. It was well-wooded and fertile; there were birds of variouskinds, and herds of swine roaming about, the progeny of a number thathad swam ashore, in former years, from a Spanish wreck. The islandabounded with turtle, and great quantities of their eggs were to befound among the rocks. The bays and inlets were full of fish; so tame,that if any one stepped into the water, they would throng around him.Sir George Somers, in a little while, caught enough with hook and lineto furnish a meal to his whole ship's company. Some of them were solarge, that two were as much as a man could carry. Crawfish, also,were taken in abundance. The air was soft and salubrious, and the skybeautifully serene. Waller, in his "Summer Islands," has given us afaithful picture of the climate:

　　"For the kind spring, (which but salutes us here,)Inhabits these, and courts them all the year:Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live;At once they promise, and at once they give:So sweet the air, so moderate the clime,None sickly lives, or dies before his time.Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncursedTo shew how all things were created first."

　　We may imagine the feelings of the shipwrecked marines on findingthemselves cast by stormy seas upon so happy a coast; where abundancewas to be had without labor; where what in other climes constituted thecostly luxuries of the rich, were within every man's reach; and wherelife promised to be a mere holiday. Many of the common sailors,especially, declared they desired no better lot than to pass the rest oftheir lives on this favored island.The commanders, however, were not so ready to console themselveswith mere physical comforts, for the severance from the enjoyment ofcultivated life, and all the objects of honorable ambition. Despairingof the arrival of any chance ship on these shunned and dreaded islands,they fitted out the long-boat, making a deck of the ship's hatches,and having manned her with eight picked men, despatched her, underthe command of an able and hardy mariner, named Raven, to proceed toVirginia, and procure shipping to be sent to their relief.While waiting in anxious idleness for the arrival of the looked-foraid, dissensions arose between Sir George Somers and Sir Thomas Gates,originating, very probably, in jealousy of the lead which the nauticalexperience and professional station of the admiral gave him in thepresent emergency. Each commander, of course, had his adherents:these dissensions ripened into a complete schism; and this handfulof shipwrecked men, thus thrown together, on an uninhabited island,separated into two parties, and lived asunder in bitter feud, as menrendered fickle by prosperity instead of being brought into brotherhoodby a common calamity.Weeks and months elapsed, without bringing the looked-for aid fromVirginia, though that colony was within but a few days' sail. Fears werenow entertained that the long-boat had been either swallowed up inthe sea, or wrecked on some savage coast; one or other of which mostprobably was the case, as nothing was ever heard of Raven and hiscomrades.Each party now set to work to build a vessel for itself out of the cedarwith which the island abounded. The wreck of the Sea-Vulture furnishedrigging, and various other articles; but they had no iron for bolts, andother fastenings; and for want of pitch and tar, they payed the seams oftheir vessels with lime and turtle's oil, which soon dried, and becameas hard as stone.On the tenth of May, 1610, they set sail, having been about nine monthson the island. They reached Virginia without farther accident, but foundthe colony in great distress for provisions. The account they gave ofthe abundance that reigned in the Bermudas, and especially of the herdsof swine that roamed the island, determined Lord Delaware, the governorof Virginia, to send thither for supplies. Sir George Somers, with hiswonted promptness and generosity, offered to undertake what was stillconsidered a dangerous voyage. Accordingly, on the nineteenth of June,he set sail, in his own cedar vessel of thirty tons, accompanied byanother small vessel, commanded by Captain Argall.The gallant Somers was doomed again to be tempest-tossed. His companionvessel was soon driven back to port, but he kept the sea; and, as usual,remained at his post on deck, in all weathers. His voyage was long andboisterous, and the fatigues and exposures which he underwent, were toomuch for a frame impaired by age, and by previous hardships. He arrivedat Bermudas completely exhausted and broken down.His nephew, Captain Mathew Somers, attended him in his illness withaffectionate assiduity. Finding his end approaching, the veteran calledhis men together, and exhorted them to be true to the interests ofVirginia; to procure provisions with all possible despatch, and hastenback to the relief of the colony.With this dying charge, he gave up the ghost, leaving us nephew and crewoverwhelmed with grief and consternation. Their first thought was topay honor to his remains. Opening the body, they took out the heart andentrails, and buried them, erecting a cross over the grave. They thenembalmed the body, and set sail with it for England; thus, while payingempty honors to their deceased commander, neglecting his earnest wishand dying injunction, that they should return with relief to Virginia.The little bark arrived safely at Whitechurch, in Dorsetshire, with itsmelancholy freight. The body of the worthy Somers was interred with themilitary honors due to a brave soldier, and many volleys were firedover his grave. The Bermudas have since received the name of the SomerIslands, as a tribute to his memory.The accounts given by Captain Mathew Somers and his crew of thedelightful climate, and the great beauty, fertility, and abundance ofthese islands, excited the zeal of enthusiasts, and the cupidity ofspeculators, and a plan was set on foot to colonize them. The Virginiacompany sold their right to the islands to one hundred and twenty oftheir own members, who erected themselves into a distinct corporation,under the name of the "Somer Island Society;" and Mr. Richard More wassent out, in 1612, as governor, with sixty men, to found a colony: andthis leads me to the second branch of this research.

　　THE END.* * * * * * * * * * * *

　　THE THREE KINGS OF BERMUDA.AND THEIR TREASURE OF AMBERGRIS.

　　At the time that Sir George Somers was preparing to launch hiscedar-built bark, and sail for Virginia, there were three culprits amonghis men, who had been guilty of capital offences. One of them was shot;the others, named Christopher Carter and Edward Waters, escaped. Waters,indeed, made a very narrow escape, for he had actually been tied to atree to be executed, but cut the rope with a knife, which he hadconcealed about his person, and fled to the woods, where he was joined byCarter. These two worthies kept themselves concealed in the secret partsof the island, until the departure of the two vessels. When Sir GeorgeSomers revisited the island, in quest of supplies for the Virginiacolony, these culprits hovered about the landing-place, and succeeded inpersuading another seaman, named Edward Chard, to join them, giving himthe most seductive pictures of the ease and abundance in which theyrevelled.When the bark that bore Sir George's body to England had faded from thewatery horizon, these three vagabonds walked forth in their majesty andmight, the lords and sole inhabitants of these islands. For a time theirlittle commonwealth went on prosperously and happily. They built ahouse, sowed corn, and the seeds of various fruits; and having plentyof hogs, wild fowl, and fish of all kinds, with turtle in abundance,carried on their tripartite sovereignty with great harmony and muchfeasting. All kingdoms, however, are doomed to revolution, convulsion,or decay; and so it fared with the empire of the three kings of Bermuda,albeit they were monarchs without subjects. In an evil hour, in theirsearch after turtle, among the fissures of the rocks, they came upon agreat treasure of ambergris, which had been cast on shore by the ocean.Beside a number of pieces of smaller dimensions, there was one greatmass, the largest that had ever been known, weighing eighty pounds, andwhich of itself, according to the market value of ambergris in thosedays, was worth about nine or ten thousand pounds!From that moment, the happiness and harmony of the three kings ofBermuda were gone for ever. While poor devils, with nothing to sharebut the common blessings of the island, which administered to presentenjoyment, but had nothing of convertible value, they were loving andunited: but here was actual wealth, which would make them rich men,whenever they could transport it to a market.Adieu the delights of the island! They now became flat and insipid. Eachpictured to himself the consequence he might now aspire to, in civilizedlife, could he once get there with this mass of ambergris. No longer apoor Jack Tar, frolicking in the low taveriis of Wapping, he might rollthrough London in his coach, and perchance arrive, like Whittington, atthe dignity of Lord Mayor.With riches came envy and covetousness. Each was now for assuming thesupreme power, and getting the monopoly of the ambergris. A civil war atlength broke out: Chard and Waters defied each other to mortal combat,and the kingdom of the Bermudas was on the point of being deluged withroyal blood. Fortunately, Carter took no part in the bloody feud.Ambition might have made him view it with secret exultation; for ifeither or both of his brother potentates were slain in the conflict,he would be a gainer in purse and ambergris. But he dreaded to be leftalone in this uninhabited island, and to find himself the monarch ofa solitude: so he secretly purloined and hid the weapons of thebelligerent rivals, who, having no means of carrying on the war,gradually cooled down into a sullen armistice.The arrival of Governor More, with an overpowering force of sixty men,put an end to the empire. He took possession of the kingdom, in thename of the Somer Island Company, and forthwith proceeded to make asettlement. The three kings tacitly relinquished their sway, but stoodup stoutly for their treasure. It was determined, however, that theyhad been fitted out at the expense, and employed in the service, of theVirginia Company; that they had found the ambergis while in the serviceof that company, and on that company's land; that the ambergis,therefore, belonged to that company, or rather to the Somer IslandCompany, in consequence of their recent purchase of the island, and alltheir appurtenances. Having thus legally established their right, andbeing moreover able to back it by might, the company laid the lion's pawupon the spoil; and nothing more remains on historic record of the ThreeKings of Bermuda, and their treasure of ambergris.

　　* * * * * * *

　　The reader will now determine whether I am more extravagant than mostof the commentators on Shakspeare, in my surmise that the story of SirGeorge Somers' shipwreck, and the subsequent occurrences that took placeon the uninhabited island, may have furnished the bard with some of theelements of his drama of the Tempest. The tidings of the shipwreck, andof the incidents connected with it, reached England not long before theproduction of this drama, and made a great sensation there. A narrativeof the whole matter, from which most of the foregoing particulars areextracted, was published at the time in London, in a pamphlet form, andcould not fail to be eagerly perused by Shakspeare, and to make a vividimpression on his fancy. His expression, in the Tempest, of "the stillvext Bermoothes," accords exactly with the storm-beaten character ofthose islands. The enchantments, too, with which he has clothed theisland of Prospero, may they not be traced to the wild and superstitiousnotions entertained about the Bermudas? I have already cited twopassages from a pamphlet published at the time, showing that theywere esteemed "a most prodigious and inchanted place," and the"habitation of divells;" and another pamphlet, published shortlyafterward, observes: "And whereas it is reported that this land of theBarmudas, with the islands about, (which are many, at least a hundred,)are inchanted and kept with evil and wicked spirits, it is a most idleand false report."[Footnote: "Newes from the Barmudas;" 1612.]The description, too, given in the same pamphlets, of the real beautyand fertility of the Bermudas, and of their serene and happy climate, soopposite to the dangerous and inhospitable character with which they hadbeen stigmatized, accords with the eulogium of Sebastian on the islandof Prospero:"Though this island seem to be desert, uninhabitable, and almostinaccessible, it must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicatetemperance. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. Here is everything advantageous to life. How lush and lusty the grass looks! howgreen!"I think too, in the exulting consciousness of ease, security, andabundance felt by the late tempest-tossed mariners, while revelling inthe plenteousness of the island, and their inclination to remain there,released from the labors, the cares, and the artificial restraints ofcivilized life, I can see something of the golden commonwealth of honestGonzalo:

　　"Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,And were the king of it, what would I do?I' the commonwealth I would by contrariesExecute all things: for no kind of trafficWould I admit; no name of magistrate;Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,And use of service, none; contract, succession,Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none:No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil:No occupation; all men idle, all.All things in common, nature should produce,Without sweat or endeavor: Treason, felony,Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,Of its own kind, all foizon, all abundance,To feed my innocent people."

　　But above all, in the three fugitive vagabonds who remained inpossession of the island of Bermuda, on the departure of their comrades,and in their squabbles about supremacy, on the finding of theirtreasure, I see typified Sebastian, Trinculo, and their worthy companionCaliban:"Trinculo, the king and all our company being drowned,we will inherit here.""Monster, I will kill this man; his daughter and I will be king andqueen, (save our graces!) and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys."I do not mean to hold up the incidents and characters in the narrativeand in the play as parallel, or as being strikingly similar: neitherwould I insinuate that the narrative suggested the play; I would onlysuppose that Shakspeare, being occupied about that time on the drama ofthe Tempest, the main story of which, I believe, is of Italian origin,had many of the fanciful ideas of it suggested to his mind by theshipwreck of Sir George Somers on the "still vext Bermothes," and by thepopular superstitions connected with these islands, and suddenly put incirculation by that event.

　　THE END.* * * * * * * * * * * *