Appalling ignorance of geography amongst English people--Novel
pedagogic methods--"Happy Families"--An instructive game--Bermuda--A
waterless island--A most inviting archipelago--Bermuda the most
northern coral-atoll--The reefs and their polychrome fish--A
"water-glass"--Sea-gardens--An ideal sailing place-How the Guardsman
won his race--A miniature Parliament--Unfounded aspersions on the
Bermudians--Red and blue birds--Two pardonable mistakes--Soldier
gardeners--Officers' wives--The little roaming home-makers--A pleasant
island--The inquisitive German Naval Officers--"The Song of the
Bermudians."
The crass ignorance of the average Englishman about geography is
really appalling. He neither knows, nor wants to know, anything about
it, and oddly enough seems to think that there is something rather
clever about his dense ignorance. This ignorance extends to our
statesmen, as we know by the painful experience of some of our
treaties, which can only have been drawn up by men grossly ignorant of
the parts of the world about which they were supposed to be
negotiating. I quite admit that geography is almost ignored in our
schools, and yet no branch of knowledge can be made so attractive to
the young, and, taught in conjunction with history, as it should be,
none is of higher educational value. At the request of two clerical
friends, I gave some geography lessons last year to the little boys in
their schools. My methods were admittedly illegitimate. In the course
of the last fifteen years I have sent hundreds of coloured
picture-postcards of places all over the world, in Asia, Africa,
Europe and America, to a small great-nephew of mine, now of an age
when such things no longer appeal to him. Armed with my big bundle of
postcards, and with another parcel as well, I tackled my small pupils.
I never spoke of them of a place without showing them a set of views
of it, for I have a theory that the young remember more by the eye
than by the ear. In this way a place-name conveyed to them a definite
idea, for they had seen half-a-dozen somewhat garishly coloured
presentments of it. The young love colour. Then my second method came
into play. "Evans, what did I tell you last time grew in Jamaica?"
"Sugar and coffee, sir," "Next boy, what else?" "Pepper, salt and
mustard, sir." "Young idiot! Next boy." "Cocoa, sir, and ginger."
"Very good, Oxley. Bring me that long parcel there. There is enough
preserved ginger for two pieces for each boy; Ellis, who gave a silly
answer, gets none." "Baker, what fruit did I tell you grew in the West
Indies?" "Pineapples, sir." "Very good, Baker. Bring me those two tins
of pineapple and the tin-opener. Plenty for you all." My lessons were
quite enormously popular with my pupils, though the matron complained
that the boys seemed liable to bilious attacks after them.
In the days of my childhood, some ingenious person had devised a game
known as "Educational Quartettes." These "quartettes" were merely
another form of the game of "Happy Families," which seems to make so
persistent an appeal to the young. Every one must be familiar with it.
The underlying principle is that any possessor of one card of any
family may ask another player for any missing card of the suit; in
this way the whereabouts of the cards can be gradually ascertained,
and "Mr. Bones the Butcher" finds himself eventually reunited,
doubtless to his great joy, to his worthy, if unprepossessing spouse,
Mrs. Bones, and to his curiously hideous offspring, Miss Bones and
Master Bones. The same holds good with regard to the other families,
those of Mr. Bun the Baker, Mr. Pots the Painter, and their friends,
and we can only hope that these families make up in moral worth for
their painful lack of physical attractions. "Educational Quartettes"
were played in exactly the same way. At the age of six, I played them
every night with my sisters and brother, and the set we habitually
used was "English Ecclesiastical Architecture." In lieu of Mr. Bung
the Brewer, we had "Norman Style, 1066-1145." Mrs. Bung was replaced
by "Massive Columns," Miss Bung by "Round Arches," Master Bung by
"Dog-tooth Mouldings," each one with its picture. The next Quartette
was "Early English, 1189-1307." No. 2 being "Clustered Columns," No. 3
"Pointed Arches," No. 4 "Lancet Windows," each one again with its
picture, and so on through the later styles. We had none of us the
least idea that we were being educated; we thought that we were merely
playing a game, but the information got insensibly absorbed through
ear and eye, and remained there.
Never shall I forget the astonishment of a clergyman who was showing
his church to my youngest brother and myself, he then being aged nine,
and I eleven. The Vicar observed that, had we been older, we would
have found his church very interesting architecturally, when my
nine-year-old brother remarked quite casually, "Where we are, it is
decorated 1307-1377, but by the organ it's Early English, 1189-1307."
The clergyman, no doubt, thought him a precocious little prig, but
from perpetually playing Architectural Quartettes, this little piece
of information came instinctively from him, for he had absorbed it
unconsciously.
Another set we habitually played was entitled "Famous Travellers," and
even after the lapse of fifty-six years, many of the names still stick
in my memory. For instance under "North Africa" came 2, Jules Gerard;
3, Earth; 4, Denham and Clapperton. Jules Gerard's name was familiar
to me, for was he not, like the illustrious Tartarin de Tarascon, a
_tueur de lions_? It was, indeed, Jules Gerard's example which
first fired the imagination of the immortal Tarasconnais, though
personally I confess to a slight feeling of disappointment at learning
from Gerard's biographer that, in spite of his grandiloquent title,
his total bag of lions in eleven years was only twenty-five. As to the
German, Heinrich Earth, my knowledge of him is of the slightest, and I
plead guilty to complete ignorance about Denham and Clapperton's
exploits, though their names seem more suggestive of a firm of
respectable family solicitors or of a small railway station on a
branch line, than of two distinguished travellers. The main point is
that after an interval of more than half a century, these names should
have stuck in my memory, thus testifying to the educational value of
the game. I wish that some educationalist, taking advantage of the
proved liking of children for this form of game, would revive these
Quartettes, for there is an immense advantage in a child learning
unconsciously. I think that geography could be easily taught in this
way; for instance: 1. France (capital Paris). 2. Lyons and Marseilles.
3. Bordeaux and Rouen. 4. Lille and Strasbourg. Coloured maps or views
of the various cities would be indispensable, for I still maintain
that a child remembers through its eyes. In my youth I was given a
most excellent little manual of geography entitled _Near Home_,
embellished with many crude woodcuts. The book had admittedly an
extremely string religious bias, but it was written in a way
calculated to interest the young, and thanks to the woodcuts most of
its information got permanently absorbed. Perhaps some one with
greater experience in such matters than I can pretend to, may devise a
more effectual scheme for combating the crass ignorance of most
English people about geography.
Should one ask the average Englishman where Bermuda is, he would be
certain to reply, "Somewhere in the West Indies," which is exactly
where it is not.
This fascinating archipelago of coral islands forms an isolated little
group in the North Atlantic, six hundred miles from the United States,
three thousand miles from Europe, and twelve hundred miles north of
the West Indies. Bermuda is the second oldest British Colonial
possession, ranking only after Newfoundland, which was discovered by
John Cabot in 1497, and occupied in the name of Queen Elizabeth in
1583. Sir George Somers being wrecked on Bermuda in 1609, at once
retaliated by annexing the group, though, as there is not one drop of
water on any of the islands, there were naturally no aboriginal
inhabitants to dispute his claim.
Bermuda is to me a perpetual economic puzzle, for it seems to defy
triumphantly all the rules which govern other places. Here is a group
of islands whose total superficies is only 12,500 acres, of which
little more than one-tenth is capable of cultivation. There is no
fresh water whatever, the inhabitants being entirely dependent on the
rainfall for their supply; and yet some 22,000 people, white and
coloured, live there in great prosperity, and there is no poverty
whatever. I almost hesitate before adding that there are no taxes in
Bermuda beyond a 10 per cent. _ad valorem_ duty on everything imported
into the islands except foodstuffs; for the housing accommodation is
already rather overstrained, and should this fact become generally
known, I apprehend that there would be such an influx into Bermuda from
the United Kingdom of persons desirous of escaping from our present
crushing burden of taxation, that the many caves of the archipelago
would all have to be fitted up as lodging-houses. The real explanation
of the prosperity of the islands is probably to be found in the
wonderful fertility of the soil, which produces three crops a year, and
in the immense tourist traffic during the winter months.
The islands were originally settled in rather a curious way. Certain
families, my own amongst them, took shares in the "Bermuda Company,"
and each undertook to plant a little "tribe" there. These "tribes"
seem to have come principally from Norfolk and Lincolnshire, as is
shown by the names of the principal island families. The Triminghams,
the Tuckers, the Inghams, the Pennistones, and the Outerbridges have
all been there since the early sixteen hundreds. Probably nowhere in
the world is the colour-line drawn more rigidly than in Bermuda; white
and coloured never meet socially, and there are separate schools for
white and black children. This is, of course, due to the instinct of
self-preservation; in so small a community it would have been
impossible otherwise for the white settlers to keep their blood pure
for three hundred years. The names of the different parishes show the
families who originally took shares in the Bermuda Company; Pembroke,
Devonshire, Hamilton, Warwick, Paget, and Somerset amongst others.
They are the most delightful islands imaginable. The vegetation is
sub-tropical rather than tropical, and all the islands are clothed
with a dense growth of Bermudian cedar (really a juniper), and of
oleander. I have never seen a sea of deeper sapphire-blue, and this is
reflected not from above, but from below, and is due to the bed of
white coral sand beneath the water. On the dullest day the water keeps
its deep-blue tint. When the oleanders are in bloom, the milk-white
houses, peeping out from this sheet of rose-pink, with the deep indigo
of the sea, and the sombre green of the cedars, make one of the most
enchanting pictures that it is possible to imagine.
Bermuda has distinctly an island climate, which is perhaps fortunate,
as the inhabitants are entirely dependent on rain-water. With a north
wind there is brilliant sunshine tempered by occasional terrific
downpours. With a south wind there is a perpetual warm drizzle varied
with heavy showers. With a west wind the weather is apt to be
uncertain, but I was assured that an east wind brought settled, fine
weather. I never recollect an east wind in Bermuda, but my climatic
reminiscences only extend to the winter months.
Bermuda is the most northern coral-atoll existing, and is the only
place where I have actually seen the coral insect at work on the
reefs. He is not an insect at all, but a sort of black slug. These
curious creatures have all an inherited tendency to suicide, for when
the coral-worm gets above the tide-level he dies. Still they work
bravely away, obsessed with the idea of raising their own particular
reef well out of the water at the cost of their own lives. The coral
of a reef is an ugly brown substance which has been inelegantly
compared to a decayed tooth. Not until the coral is pulverised does it
take on its milk-white colour. I am told by learned people that
Bermuda, like most coral islands, is of Aolian formation; that is,
that the powdered coral has been gradually deposited by the winds of
countless centuries until it has risen high out of the water. Farther
south in the tropics, we know what happens. Nature has given the
cocoa-nut the power of preserving its vitality almost indefinitely.
The fallen nuts float on the sea and drift hither and thither. Once
washed up on a beach and dried by the sun, the nut thrusts out little
green suckers from those "eyes" which every one must have noticed on
cocoa-nuts, anchors itself firmly into the soil, and in seven years
will be bearing fruit. The fallen fronds decay and make soil, and so
another island becomes gradually clothed with vegetation. In Bermuda
the cedar replaces the cocoa-nut palm.
Fishing on the reefs in Bermuda is the best fun imaginable for persons
not liable to sea-sickness. The fisherman has in his left hand a
"water-glass," which is merely a stout box with the bottom filled in
with plate-glass. The water-glass must be held below the ripple of the
surface, which, by the way, requires a fair amount of muscular effort,
when through the pane of glass, the sea-floor ten fathoms below is
clearly visible. The coloured fish of Jamaica were neutral-tinted
pigmies compared to the polychrome monsters on a Bermudian reef, and
one could actually see them swallowing one's bait. One of the
loveliest fishes that swims is the Bermudian angel-fish, who has the
further merit of almost equalling a sole when fried. Shaped like a
John Dory, he has a lemon-coloured body with a back of brilliant
turquoise-blue, which gleams in the water like vivid blue enamel. He
is further decorated with two long orange streamers. The angel-fish,
having a very small mouth, must be fished for with a special hook.
Then there is the queen-turbot, shaded from dark blue to palest
turquoise, reminding one of Lord's Cricket Ground at an Eton and
Harrow match; besides pink fish, scarlet fish, and orange fish, which
when captured make the bottom-boards of the boat look like a Futurist
landscape, not to speak of horrible, spotted, eel-like creatures whose
bite is venomous. Reef-fishing is full of exciting incidents, but its
chief attraction is the amazing beauty of the sea-gardens as seen
through the water-glass, with sponges and sea-fans of every hue,
gently waving in the current far below, as fish of all the colours of
the rainbow play in and out of them in the clear blue water.
At Bermuda I found my old friend, the Guardsman, established at
Government House as A.D.C. The island is one of the most ideal places
in the world for boat-sailing, and the Guardsman had taken up yacht
racing with his usual enthusiasm; atoning for his lack of experience
by a persistent readiness to take the most hideous risks. The C.O. of
the British battalion then stationed in Bermuda was rather hard put to
it to find sufficient employment for his men, owing to the restricted
area of the island. He encouraged, therefore, their engagements in
civilian capacities, as it not only put money into the men's pockets,
but kept them interested. At Government House we had
soldier-gardeners, soldier-grooms, a soldier cowman, and a
soldier-footman. The footman was a Southampton lad, and having been
employed as a boy in a racing-yacht on the Solent, was a most useful
man in a boat, and the Guardsman had accordingly annexed him as one of
his racing crew, regardless of the fact that his labours afloat rather
interfered with the specific domestic duties ashore for which he had
been engaged by the Governor. A hundred-year-old yacht had for many
years been handed over from Governor to Governor. The _Lady of the
Isles_ was Bermudian-rigged and Bermudian-built of cedar-wood. She
had great beam, and was very lightly sparred, having a correspondingly
small sail-area, but in spite of her great age she was still
absolutely sound and was a splendid sea-boat. The Bermudian rig had
been evolved to meet local conditions. Imagine a cutter with one
single long spar in the place of a mast and topmast; this spar is
stepped rather farther aft than it would be in an ordinary cutter, and
there is one huge mainsail, "leg-of-mutton" shaped, with a boom but no
gaff, and a very large jib. Owing to their big head-sails, and to
their heavy keels, these Bermudian craft fore-reach like a steamer,
and hardly ever miss stays. For the same reason they are very wet, as
they bury themselves in the water. A handsome silver cup had been
presented by a visitor for a yacht race right round the Bermudas, and
the Guardsman managed to persuade the Governor to enter his
centenarian yacht for this race, and to confide the sailing of her to
himself. The ancient _Lady of the Isles_ got a very liberal time
allowance on account of her age and her small spread of canvas, but to
every one but the Guardsman it seemed like entering a Clydesdale for
the Derby. He had already formulated his plan, but kept it strictly to
himself; for its success half a gale of wind was necessary. I agreed
to sail with him, and as the start was to be at 6 a.m. I got up three
mornings running at 4 a.m., and found myself with Joss, the Guardsman,
and the soldier-footman on the water-front at half-past five in the
morning, only to discover that there was not the faintest breath of
air, and that Hamilton Harbour lay one unruffled sheet of lapis-lazuli
in a flat calm; a state of things I should imagine unparallelled in "the
still vexed Bermoothes." (How on earth did Shakespeare ever come to
hear of Bermuda?) Three days running the race was declared "off," so
when the Guardsman awoke me on the fourth morning with the news that
it was blowing a full gale, I flatly declined to move, and turned over
and went to sleep again, thereby saving my nerves a considerable
trial.
Government House has a signal-station of its own, and at ten o'clock a
message arrived announcing that the _Lady of the Isles_ was
leading by four miles. The Governor, who had never taken his old
yacht's entry seriously, grew tremendously excited, ordered a light
trap and two fast ponies round, and he and I, equipped with telescopes
and sandwiches, spent the rest of the day tearing from one end of the
island to the other, now on the south shore, now on the north shore,
lying on our stomachs with telescopes to our eyes. It was quite true
that the old centenarian had a tremendous lead, which was gradually
decreased as the day went on. Still, the Guardsman, with face and
hands the colour of a copper kettle, appeared triumphantly at dinner
with a large silver cup which he presented with a bow to Lady
Wodehouse, the Governor's wife, whilst the soldier-footman, burnt
redder than the Reddest of Indians above his white shirt and tie,
grinned sympathetically as he busied himself over his duties with the
cauliflowers and potatoes. What had happened was this: the race was
right round the islands, without any mark-boats to round. There was a
very heavy sea running, and great breakers were washing over the
reefs. The other yachts all headed for the "gate," or opening in the
reefs, but the Guardsman, a keen hunting man, knowing that alone of
the competitors the old _Lady of the Isles_ had no "fin-keel,"
had determined to try and _jump the reef_. In spite of the
frantic protests of the black pilot, he headed straight for the reef,
and, watching his opportunity, put her fairly at it as a big sea swept
along, and got over without a scrape, thus gaining six miles. It was a
horribly risky proceeding, for had they bumped, the old yacht would
have gone to pieces, and the big sharks lie hungrily off the reefs.
The one chance for the broad-beamed old boat, with her small
sail-area, was a gale of wind, for here her wonderful qualities as a
sea-boat came in. I often sailed in races with the Guardsman in a
smaller modern boat, much to the detriment of my nervous system, for
he was incorrigible about taking risks, in which he was abetted by the
soldier-footman, a sporting youth who, being always given a pecuniary
interest in the races, was quite willing to take chances. The
Guardsman, as a hunting man, never seemed to realise that a yacht had
not the same jumping powers as a horse, and that a reef was a somewhat
formidable barrier to tackle.
Owing to Bermudian boats being so "wet," one always landed soaked to
the skin, and in any town but Hamilton, people would have stared at
seeing three drowned rats in white garments, clinging like tights,
making their dripping way home through the streets; but there it is
such an everyday occurrence that no one even turned their heads; and,
as the soldier-footman was fond of observing, "It's comfortable
feeling as 'ow you're so wet that you can't get no wetter no'ow."
Bermuda has its own little Parliament of thirty-six members, the
oldest Parliament in the New World. It really is an ideal Chamber, for
every one of the thirty-six members sit on the Government side; there
is no Opposition. The electors do not seem to favour youthful
representatives, for the heads of the legislators were all white or
grey, and there seemed in the atmosphere a wholesome mistrust of
innovations. There was great popular excitement over a Bill for
permitting the use of motor-cars in the islands, a Bill to which
public opinion was dead opposed. There was some reason in this
opposition. The roads in Bermuda are excellent, but they are all made
of coral, which becomes very slippery when wet. The roads twist a
great deal, and the island is hilly, and the farmers complained that
they could never get their great wagons of vegetables (locally called
"garden-truck") down to the harbour in safety should motor-cars be
permitted. I well remember one white-headed old gentleman thundering
out: "Our fathers got on without all these new-fangled notions, and
what was good enough for my father is good enough for me, Mr.
Speaker," a sentiment which provoked loud outbursts of applause.
Another patriarch observed: "As it was in the beginning, is now, and
ever shall be, is our motto in Bermuda, Mr. Speaker," a confession of
faith which was received by the House with rapturous enthusiasm; so,
by thirty-three votes to three, all motors were declared illegal in
the islands.
I do not apprehend that there will ever be a shortage of building
materials in Bermuda, for this is how a house is built. The whole
formation being of coral, the stones are quarried on the actual site
of the house, the hole thus created being cemented and used as a
cistern for the rain-water from the roof. The accommodating coral is
as soft as cheese when first cut, but hardens after some months'
exposure to the air. The soft stones are shaped as wanted, together
with thin slabs of coral for the roof, and are then all left to
harden. When finished, the entire house, including the roof, is
whitewashed, the convenient coral also furnishing the whitening
material.
These white roofs give quite an individual character to a Bermudian
landscape, their object, of course, being to keep the rain-water
supply pure. The men and women who live in these houses are really
delightful people, and are all perfectly natural and unaffected. They
are all, as one might suppose in so small a place, inter-related. The
men seem to have a natural aptitude for cricket, whilst Bermudian
girls can all dance, swim, play lawn-tennis, and sail boats to
perfection. On my second visit to the islands, I was much struck with
one small incident. Two pretty sisters were always the first arrivals
at the bi-weekly hotel dances. I found that they lived on the far side
of Hamilton Harbour, some six miles by road. As they could not afford
ten dollars twice a week for carriage hire, they put on sea-boots and
oilskins over their ball-gowns, and then paddled themselves across a
mile and a half of rough water, shook out their creases and touched up
their hair on arrival, danced all the evening, and then paddled
themselves home, whatever the weather. Most Bermudian girls, indeed,
seem quite amphibious.
I went out the second time with a great friend of mine, who was
anxious to see her son, then quartered in the island. We had attended
the Parade Service on Sunday at the Garrison Church, and my friend was
resting on the hotel verandah, when she heard two American ladies
talking. "My dear," said one of them, "you ought to have come up to
that Garrison Church. I tell you, it was a right smart, snappy, dandy
little Service, with a Colonel in full uniform reading selections from
the Bible from a gilt eagle."
Amongst other interesting people I saw a good deal of at that time in
Bermuda was "Mark Twain," who had, however, begun to fail, and that
most cultivated and delightful of men, the late William Dean Howells.
I twice met at luncheon a gentleman who, I was told, might possibly be
adopted as Democratic Candidate for the Presidency of the United
States. His name was Dr. Woodrow Wilson.
Many country houses in Bermuda have pieces of old Chippendale and
French furniture in them, as well as fine specimens of old French and
Spanish silver. I entirely discredit the malicious rumours I have
heard about the origin of these treasures. All male Bermudians were
seafaring folk in the eighteenth century, and ill-natured people hint
that these intrepid mariners, not content with their legitimate
trading profits, were occasionally not averse to--a little maritime
enterprise. These scandalmongers insinuate that in addition to the
British Ensign under which they sailed, another flag of a duskier hue
was kept in a convenient locker, and was occasionally hoisted when the
owner felt inclined to indulge his tastes as a collector of works of
art, or to act as a Marine Agent. I do not believe one word of it, and
emphatically decline to associate such kindly people with such dubious
proceedings, even if a hundred and fifty years have elapsed since
then.
These merchant-traders conducted their affairs on the most patriarchal
principles. They built their own schooners of their own cedar-wood,
and sailed them themselves with a crew of their own black slaves. The
invariable round-voyage was rather a complicated one. The first stage
was from Bermuda in ballast to Turks' Island, in the British Caicos
group. At Turks' Island for two hundred years salt has been prepared
by evaporating sea-water. The Bermudian owner filled up with salt, and
sailed for the Banks of Newfoundland, where he disposed of his cargo
of salt to the fishermen for curing their cod, and loaded up with
salt-fish, with which he sailed to the West Indies. Salt-fish has
always been, and still is, the staple article of diet of the West
Indian negro; so, his load of salt-fish being advantageously disposed
of, he filled up with sugar, coffee, rum, and other tropical produce,
and left for New York, where he found a ready sale for his cargo. At
New York he loaded up with manufactured goods and "Yankee notions,"
and returned to Bermuda to dispose of them, thus completing the round
trip; but I still refuse to credit the story of other and less
legitimate developments of mercantile enterprise. Of course, should
Britain be at war with either France or Spain, and should a richly
loaded French or Spanish merchantman happen to be overtaken, things
might obviously be a little different. The Bermudian owner might then
feel it his duty to relieve the vessel of any objects of value to
avoid tempting the cupidity of others less scrupulous than himself;
but I cannot believe that this was an habitual practice, and should
the dusky flag ever have been hoisted, I feel certain that it was only
through sheer inadvertence.
I know of one country house in Bermuda where the origin of all the
beautiful things it contains is above all suspicion. The house stands
on a knoll overlooking the ultramarine waters of Hamilton Harbour, and
is surrounded by a dense growth of palms, fiddle trees, and spice
trees. The rooms are panelled in carved cedar-wood, and there is
charming "grillage" iron-work in the fanlights and outside gates.
There is an old circular-walled garden with brick paths, a perfect
blaze of colour; and at the back of the house, which is clothed in
stephanotis and "Gloire de Dijon" roses, an avenue of flaming scarlet
poinsettias leads to the orchard: it is a delightful, restful,
old-world place, which, together with its inhabitants, somehow still
retains its eighteenth-century atmosphere.
The red and blue birds form one of the attractions of Bermuda. The
male red bird, the Cardinal Grosbeak, a remarkably sweet songster,
wears an entire suit of vivid carmine, and has a fine tufted crest of
the same colour, whilst his wife is dressed more soberly in dull grey
bordered with red, just like a Netley nursing sister. The blue birds
have dull red breasts like our robins, with turquoise-blue backs and
wings, glinting with the same metallic sheen on the blue that the
angel-fish display in the water. As with our kingfishers, one has the
sense of a brilliant flash of blue light shooting past one. The red
and blue birds are very accommodating, for they often sit on the same
tree, making startling splashes of colour against the sombre green of
the cedars. That the light blue may not have it all its own way, there
is the indigo bird as well, serving as a reminder of Oxford and
Harrow, and pretty little ground-doves, the smallest of the pigeon
family, as well as the "Chick-of-the-Village," a most engaging little
creature. Unfortunately some one was injudicious enough to import the
English house-sparrow: these detestable little birds, whose instincts
are purely mischievous and destructive, like all useless things, have
increased at an enormous rate, and are gradually driving the beautiful
native birds away. All these birds were wonderfully tame till the
hateful sparrows began molesting them. I am glad to say that a fine of
5 pounds is levied on any one killing or capturing a red or blue bird,
and I only wish that a reward were given for every sparrow killed. That
pleasant writer "Bartimaeus," has in his book _Unreality_ drawn a
very sympathetic picture of Bermuda under the transparent _alias_
of "Somer's Island." He, too, has obviously fallen a victim to its
charms, and duly comments on the blue birds, which Maeterlinck could
find here in any number without a lengthy and painstaking quest.
As a boy, whilst exploring rock-pools at low water on the west coast
of Scotland, I used to think longingly of the rock-pools in warm seas,
which I pictured to myself as perfect treasure-houses of marine
curiosities. They are most disappointing. Neither in Bermuda, nor in
the West Indies, nor even on the Cape Peninsula, where the Indian and
Atlantic Oceans meet, could I find anything whatever in the
rock-pools. To adopt the Sunday School child's word, there seem to be
no "tindamies" on the beaches of warm seas. Every one must have heard
of the little girl who got her first glimpse of the sea on a Sunday
School excursion. The child seemed terribly disappointed at something,
and in answer to her teacher's question, said that she liked the sea,
"but please where were the 'tindamies?' I was looking forward so to
the tindamies!" Pressed for an explanation the little girl repeated
from the Fourth Commandment, "In six days the Lord made heaven and
earth, the sea and all the tindamies." Tindamies is quite a convenient
word for star-fish, crabs, cuttle-fish and other flotsam and jetsam of
the beach.
The Sunday School child's mistake is rather akin to that of the old
Sussex shepherd who had never had a day's illness in his life. When at
last he did take to his bed, it was quite obvious that he would never
leave it again. The vicar of the parish visited him almost daily to
read to him. The old man always begged the clergyman to read him the
hymn, "The roseate hues of early dawn." At the tenth request for the
reading of this hymn the clergyman asked him what it was in the lines
that made such an appeal to him. "Ah, sir," answered the old shepherd,
"here I lie, and I know full well that I shall never get up again; but
when you reads me that beautiful 'ymn, I fancies myself on the downs
again at daybreak, and can just see 'Them rows of ewes at early
dawn'!"
Had the old shepherd lived in Bermuda instead of in Sussex, that is a
sight which he would never have seen, for the local grass, though it
appears green enough to the eye, is a coarse growth which crackles
under the feet and contains no nutriment whatever as pasture; so all
cows have to be fed on imported hay, rendering milk very costly. For
the same reason all meat and butter have to be imported, and their
price even in pre-war days was sufficiently staggering. The high cost
of living and the myriads of mosquitoes are the only draw-backs to
life in these Delectable Islands. That no systematic effort to
exterminate mosquitoes has ever been made in Bermuda is to me
incomprehensible, for these mosquitoes are all of the Stegomyia, or
yellow-fever-carrying variety. The Americans have shown, both in the
Canal Zone and in Havana, that with sufficient organisation it is
quite possible to extirpate these dangerous pests, and the Bermudians
could not do better than to follow their example.
Our soldier-gardeners at Government House had their own methods, and
were inclined to attach importance to points considered trivial by
civilians. The men were laying out a new vegetable garden for the
Governor, and I went with the corporal one evening to inspect
progress. The corporal, after glancing at the new-planted rows of
vegetables, shook his head in deep sadness. "'Arris, 'Arris, I'm
surprised at you! Look at the dressing of that there rear rank of
lettuces. Up with them all!" and I had to point out that the lettuces
would grow quite as well, and prove just as succulent, even should
they not happen to be in strict alignment, and that the dressing was
only important at a subsequent stage. I laid out a new border to the
approach for the Governor, with the help of four soldiers, and it was
really rather a successful piece of work. I began with a large group
of Kentia and Chamaeropes palms, after which came a patch of bright
yellow crotons, giving place to a thicket of a white-foliaged Mexican
shrub, followed by a mass of crimson and orange crotons and
copper-coloured coleus, which arrangement I repeated. What with
scarlet poinsettias, many-hued hibiscus, and the pretty native orange
pigeon-berry, I got quite an amount of colour into my border.
Pretty as are the gardens of Government House, they have to yield the
palm to those of Admiralty House, which have been carefully tended by
generations of admirals. Bartimaeus in _Unreality_ grows quite
enthusiastic over these gardens, though he does not mention their
three peculiarities. One is a fountain, the only one in the islands.
As there is not one drop of fresh water, this fountain has its own
catchment area, and its own special rain-water tank. My own idea is
that the Admiral reserves its playing for the visits of foreign naval
men, to delude them into the idea that Bermuda has an abundant water
supply. The second unusual feature is a series of large chambers hewn
out of the solid rock, with openings towards the sea. These caves were
cut out by convict labour as a refuge from the fierce heat of the
summer months. The third is a flat tombstone by the lawn-tennis
ground, inscribed "Here lies a British Midshipman 1810," nothing more;
no name, no age, no particulars. I have often wondered how that
forlorn, nameless, ageless midshipman came to be lying in the
Admiral's garden. He was probably drowned and washed ashore without
anything to identify him, so they buried him where they found him.
The particular white battalion quartered in Bermuda during my first
visit there was very fortunate in its ladies, for it had an unusual
proportion of married officers. I have the greatest admiration for
these plucky little women who accompany their husbands all over the
globe, and who always seem to manage, however narrow their means, to
create a cheerful and attractive little home for their menkind. They
all appeared able to dress themselves well, though, if the truth were
known, they were probably mostly their own dressmakers, and, owing to
the servant difficulty in Bermuda, their own cooks as well; they had
transformed their little white-washed houses into the most inviting
little dwellings, and in spite of having to do a great part of their
own housework, they always managed to look pretty and charming. The
average wife of the average officer of a Line regiment is a wonderful
little woman.
The supper-parties in the married officers' quarters at Prospect Camp
were the cheeriest entertainments I have ever been at. Every one had
to contribute something. My own culinary attainments being confined to
the preparation of three dishes, I was compelled to repeat them
monotonously. The subalterns were made to carry the dishes from the
kitchen, and to "wash-up" afterwards, yet I am sure that the average
London hostess would have envied the jollity, the fun and high spirits
that made those informal supper-parties so delightful, and would have
given anything to introduce some of this cheery atmosphere into her
own decorous and extremely dull entertainments, where the guests did
not have to cook their own dinners.
I gave a dinner-party at an hotel to eleven people, all officers or
officers' wives. The conversation turned on birthplaces, and the
answers given were so curious, that I wrote them all down. Not only
were all my guests soldiers and soldiers' wives, but they were nearly
all the sons and daughters of soldiers as well. One major had been
born at Cape Town; his very comely wife in Barbados. The other major
had been born at Meerut in India, his wife at Quebec, and her
unmarried sister in Mauritius; and so it was with all of them. Of
those twelve people of pure British blood, I was the only one who had
been born in England or in Europe; even the subaltern had been born in
Hong-Kong. I do not thing that stay-at-homes quite realise the
existence of this little world of people journeying from end to end of
the earth in the course of their duty, and taking it all as a matter
of course.
I regret that the Imperial West India Direct Line should now be
defunct, for this gave a monthly direct service between Bristol and
Bermuda, and I can conceive of no pleasanter winter quarters for those
desirous of escaping the rigours of an English January and February.
Ten days after leaving Bristol, ten days it must be confessed of
extremely angry seas, the ship dropped her anchor in Grassy Bay, and
the astonished arrival from England found ripe strawberries, new peas,
and new potatoes awaiting his good pleasure. No visitor could fail to
be delighted with the pretty, prosperous little island, and with its
genial and hospitable inhabitants. For Americans, too, the place was a
godsend, for in forty-eight hours they could escape from the extreme
and fickle climate of New York, and find themselves in warm sunshine,
tempered, it is true, by occasional downpours, for Nature, realising
that the inhabitants were dependent on the rainfall for their water
supply, did her best to avoid any shortage of this necessity of life.
Canadians had also a great liking for the islands, for not only were
they on their own soil there, but in sixty hours they could transport
themselves from the ice and snow of Montreal and Toronto to a climate
where roses and geraniums bloomed at Christmas, and where orange and
lemon trees and great wine-coloured drifts of Bougainvillaa mocked at
the futile efforts of winter to touch them. The Bishop of Bermuda, who
also included Newfoundland in his See, declared that climatically his
diocese was absolutely ideal, for he passed the six winter months in
Bermuda and the remainder of the year in Newfoundland, thus escaping
alike the rigorous winters of the northern island and the fierce
summer heat of the southern one. The Bishop himself was a
Newfoundlander, as were many of the Church of England clergy in
Bermuda. A humorous friend of mine, a sapper in charge of the
"wireless," shared to the full my liking for the islands and their
pleasant inhabitants, but positively detested Prospect Camp where he
was stationed. Prospect, though healthy enough, is wind-swept, very
dusty, and quite devoid of shade. He declared that the well-known hymn
should be altered, and ought to run:
"What though the Ocean breezes
Blow o'er Bermuda's isle;
Where every man is pleasing
And only Prospect vile."
Few people seem to realise that Bermuda is a first-class fortress, a
dockyard, and an important naval coaling-station. A glance at the map
will show its strategic importance. Nature has made it almost
inaccessible with barrier-reefs, and there is but one narrow and
difficult entrance off St. George's. This entrance is jealously
guarded by a heavy battery of 12 in. and 6 in. guns, and the ten-mile
long ship-channel inside the reefs from St. George's to the Dockyard
is very difficult and complicated, though I imagine that, with modern
guns, a ship could lie outside the reefs and shell the islands to
pieces.
The first time that I was in Bermuda, a German Training Squadron
arrived, with a number of naval cadets on board, and announced their
intention of remaining ten days. The German officers at once exhibited
a most un-Teutonic keenness about sea-fishing. The Governor, fully
alive to the advantage a possibly hostile power might reap from an
independent survey and charting of the tortuous and difficult
ship-channel between St. George's and the Dockyard, at once held a
consultation with the Senior Naval Officer, in the Admiral's absence,
and, as a result of this consultation, three naval petty officers were
detailed to show the Germans the best fishing-grounds. At the same
time naval patrol boats displayed a quite unusual activity inside the
reefs. Both patrol boats and petty officers had their private orders,
and I fancy that these steps resulted in very few soundings being
taken, and in the ship-channel remaining uncharted by our German
visitors. I was returning myself, after dark, in the ferry-boat plying
between the Dockyard and Hamilton, when there were four German
officers on the bridge. Imagining themselves secure in the general
ignorance of their language, they were openly noting the position of
the leading lights, as the little steamer threaded her way through the
smaller islands and "One rock" and "Two rock passage," and all these
observations were, I imagine, duly entered in their pocket-books after
landing. In conversation with the German officers I was much struck
with the essentially false ideas that they had with regard to the
position of the motherland and her dependencies. They seemed convinced
that every Dominion and dependency was merely waiting for the first
favourable opportunity to declare its complete independence, and they
hardly troubled to conceal their opinion that Britain was hopelessly
decadent, and would never be able to wage a campaign again. Bermuda,
in view of its wonderful strategic position, had, I am convinced, been
marked down as a future German possession, when they would have
endeavoured to make a second Heligoland of it.
Nowhere could a little population be found more loyal to the
motherland than in Bermuda, or prouder of its common heritage.
A friend of mine, a lady who had never left the islands, wrote some
lines which I thought so fine that I set them to music. Her words,
though, are so much better than my setting, that I will quote them in
full.
THE SONG OF THE BERMUDIANS
THE KEEPERS OF THE WESTERN GATE
Queen of the Seas! Thou hast given us the Keys,
Proudly do we hold them, we thy Children and akin,
Though we be nor rich nor great,
We will guard the Western Gate,
And our lives shall pay the forfeit ere we let the foeman in.
Empty are our hands, for we have nor wealth nor lands,
No grain or gold to give thee, and so few a folk are we;
Yet in very will and deed,
We will serve thee at thy need,
And keep thine ancient fortalice beyond the Western Sea.
The sea is at our doors, and we front its fretted floors,
Swept by every wind that listeth, ringed with reefs from rim to rim,
Though we may not break its bars,
Yet by light of sun or stars
Our hearts are fain for England, and for her our eyes are dim.
Sweet Mother, ponder this, lest thy favour we should miss;
We, the loneliest and least of all thy peoples of the sea.
With bared heads and proud
We bless thy name aloud,
For gift of lowly service, as we guard the gate for thee.
Those lines, to me, have a fine ring about them. The words, "In very
will and deed, We will serve thee at thy need," were not a mere empty
boast, as the splendid record of little Bermuda in the years of
trouble from 1914 to 1918 shows, when almost every man of military
age, whether white or coloured, voluntarily crossed the Atlantic to
help the motherland in her need; so let us wish all success to the
sun-kissed, cedar-clad little islands, and to their genial
inhabitants.