THEY MAKE LIFE EASY IN BERMUDA

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 170, 8 October 1927, Page 26 (Supplement)

THEY MAKE LIFE EASY IN BERMUDA

WHOLE CUPBOARDS FULL OF SKELETONS A COUNTRY THAT GROWS VISIBLY BIGGER —TWICE DAILY

ERMTJDA .... huge waves broke mercilessly in a smother of purest white; thwarted, —frustrated. Beyond them the sea was calm, lapping

gently with a liquid serenity against the low coast, half-volcanic laval rock; half-soft coral limestone. Few trees grew, what there were consisted of age-'-.ld stunted cedars. Flying fish had ceased to flutter from our white-flanked bows. Full well they knew that jagged coral reefs meant danger. For now we had reached the reefs that guard Bermuda. The wild Atlantic waves are forever knocking at Bermuda’s door. No reefs, no Bermuda, for the highest point is only a couple of hundred feet and a decent Atlantic roller

would poop Bermuda from stern to •tern, but for these reefs.. They take things easy in Bermuda. If you sail S.E. from the throbbing blaster of New York, perhaps on the third day you will see a faint mist on the horizon, the flying fish will leave you and your ship' will slip between these reefs. But don't expect a. spick and span, latest-pattern, smoke-belching pilot boat all polished and clean —for you will be disappointed. A long, narrow racing-eight sort of boat, low-lying and manned by a collection of Treasure Island despfo-a-cioes, will greet you miles out of sight of land. For hours the pilots of St. David's have been anxiously searching the heaving wastes of the vast Atlantic, looking for the bread and butter that come floating in to them. The first faint smoke from your liner will cause strong men to hurtle to their boats. The race is to the swiftest.

Muscles tauten under pull of oars. ( Long, narrow boats dash from be- ' tween the islands, racing for that smudge of smoke. He who gets there first takes in the ship, draws £1 a foot of draught, giving a portion to his crew. One of the more opulent pilots once considered buying a motor-boat, but it was thought to be bad form and the project was dropped. If you wish to learn all about the

dead-dry hones of Bermuda drop this article. Instead, take up your gazetteers, your encyclopaedias, your white papers and blue papers all complete with addendas, appendices and stale figures. There, if you perchance can read between the lines, will be the real history of the Bermudas. I know little of such papers. Most of the history of Bermuda is unprintable. Three men’s heads close together in the Somer’s Inn, St. Georges. Glasses in hand they speak in low voices. Convulsed laughter makes them grip the table’s edge. A little bit of Bermuda’s unprintable history has clattered to the floor waiting to be picked up by the hand of rumour and spread from mouth to mouth. Except that Bermuda is run on the Epicyclic Principle, wheels within wheels; except that your washerwoman may have a leper son to help her with your washing; except that many of the older families came out first as convicts and have a whole

row of cupboards full of skeletons beautifully white; except that our cook’s husband came to her one evening when we were peacefully sitting at dinner; except that the yellow fever mosquito awaits once more the yellow fever germ to make the place a shambles; except the fact that Bermuda imports American tourists and exports onions and potatoes, I know little of such books. Between Hamilton, the capital, and

St. George’s, which some say—if it were not for the Epicyclic Principle —ought to be the capital, theer lies a. coral ribbon of road. Glimpses of coastal fairyland lurk round corners in this road. Tiny inlets complete with a beach of purest sand, fringed with pink oleanders, stabbed with red flowers on a leafless tree, prime with palm trees for ever trying how best to solve the dead-leaf problem. But you’ll never see a motor-car, that snorting denizen of civilisation. No cars flash by. Oh, dear, no! Not here in Bermuda. A dreadful cross between a dog-cart and a Victoria will give you ample time to suck in every inch of fairyland along this coral road. Up hill the horse will walk, downhill the horse will walk for fear of falling. There is very little flat country. Everyone asks why there are no cars. On the Epicyclic Principle the answer is so simple. Merely that the Prime Minister of Bermuda controls the transport problem. I-Ie owns the

AN AUCTION AND A DISTINGUISHED AUCTIONEER THE STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF A RESPECTABLE VESSEL

horses, the carriages, the livery stables. Why should he allow cars to come in and spoil it all? Incidentally he isn’t really Prime Minister, but he would be if! Bermuda had one. Instead he ’’s something else that in reality means the same thing. He leads the House or something like that. Every ounce of meat Bermuda eats helps this gentleman to earn a modest income. He who controls Bermuda’s transport controls everything almost. Incidentally the electric light system, the supply of ice, the fish trade, the ice and refrigerating works, all are under one thumb.

But it is all done very nicely. No rush and worry of the city, no bang and rattle of a thriving town full of hurrying, fleeting-for-ever-late people trying to make one minute do the work of two. Bermuda never does things like that. Its transparent blue waters, full of deadly reefs; the sweet reflections of its coast in pure lagoons lined with prickly sea eggs, are symbolic of our most minute colony. Little bridges join one island to another. In all there are some 365 islands hut not all joined by bridges. For some of them complete with the inevitable dwarfed cedar are only three feet across!. In all, 19 square miles is occupied by Bermuda at high tide. When the tide is low, a 40ft fall, Bermuda grows to the not inconsiderable size of nearly 35 square miles. No country in the world, except Bermuda, does this sort of thing twice daily, and gets away with it. Bermuda is populated by all shades of colour, from the definitely-black West Indian nigger to the indefinitelywhite creole, earning a living by catching fish and selling firewood. One and all form a happy, laughing crowd which like Peter Pan refuses to grow up. During the tourist season they earn sufficient money to keep them full for the rest of the year. They go to the pictures, they adore cricket, they drink weird intoxicating liquors, they playfully stab one another in the back in moments of excitement, as we all do. But on the whole there is no more contented, happy, irresponsible race east of the Pacific. .Furthermore, the missionaries have given them up as hopeless so only on Sundays do you see assorted top-hats, flannel trousers and simulation Fair Isle jumpers being carried to church by some dark Bermudan denizen.

Oh, the sailing, the bathing, in Bermuda! From lagoon to lagoon small dinghys are for ever sailing. Every one owns a boat of some sort, from the small coloured brat of three with his imperfectly-caulked Tate sugarbox to the men of Hamilton and St. George’s, whose graceful yachts dot the harbours.

Away at Tucker’s Town, across the Castle Harbour, with its reefs and brainstones, lies Pink Beach. The world’s most marvellous bathing place, bar none. On one side, a lagoon beach of glistening white lies permanently buried beneath four feet of the bluest of blue seas. A 30-feet dee*. pool with two convenient rocks for diving (thoughtfully placed by nature in the middle of it all), makes this spot vivid in my memory. Across a narrow neck of land, perhaps a hundred yards wide, the restless Atlantic is for ever nibbling. Great combers grow majestically enormous with the slow stateliness of irresistible strength. Slowly they seem to curl shorewards and dash their fury far up a coral beach.