They Make Life Easy in Bermuda

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 170, 8 October 1927, Page 27 (Supplement)

They Make Life Easy in Bermuda

(Continued from Page 26.) With luck you will be among the smother of white that churns shorewards in spouting tornadoes of suds. The reefs keep out sharks, while prills, with long streaming tendrils for tails- make the air vibrate with lovely sounds —a cross between a slate pencil and a sneeze. There is no fruit in Bermuda. A fruit fly saw to that. The inhabitants cannot be bothered to waste time fighting it. Anyway, “unborn tomorrow” seems to come without worrj'ing about fruit; so why worry'' A STRANGE AUCTION When I left Bermuda my household things were put to auction in the accepted place—the market-place. Have you ever seen that easy chair of yours sitting forlornly, sheepishly, in* the very centre of a market, flanked by a mop, a flat iron and a jug ? It’s very pathetic. To my wardrobe, a cow was tied, waiting its turn in the hotchpotch auction. It was a great success that auction, run, ot course, on the Epicyclic Principle by well .. . can’t you guess? . . . By the man who would be Prime Minister it Bermuda had one. Yes! He did the job excellently. Why, my flat iron went for 7s 6d, despite the fact that ten yards away the one and only hardware shop flaunted similar flat jron3 for 4s 6d. When a negro of Bermuda—and they came in hundreds —gets really going in the bidding there is no stopping him. If you ever look on the map for Bermuda you will see after careful search the word Ijfermuda sprawled cut across the Atlantic. There will be •full stops” before and after that rame. One of them is Bermuda itself, for the whole place is searely 15 miles long by three across. Which of the two is Bermuda I know not. In fact some rather stingy map-printers make the stop at the end serve for both purposes. Auckland Harbour could sink all the Bermudas comfortably and not notice them. But besides being the smallest colony, Bermuda is also the oldest: it is the hub of the British Empire to those in it, and must be treated with all the respect possible by us youngsters. WHISKY AT 2s 6d A GLASS

For some reason people seem to imagine that Be-muda is the centre of the boot-leg trade. Oh, dear, no! Possibly thirsty American tourists can be persuaded to drink a glass or two of whisky at 2s 3d a time. Possibly, but why not? Have they not come a three or four days’ journey, these jaded toilers of New York, not knowing where the next £IO,OOO is coming from? Who can blame them if they slip off for their fortnight’s holiday to Beautiful Bermuda. Simultaneously they can drink in seascapes, skyscapes, and good whisky. Flat, snapless stuff, I believe, after the pep they find in.their unpurified wood alcohol. Sometimes weird things happen in St. George’s Harbour. One day a 50ton ketch slipped in at dawn, all peaceful and correct. Bound north for Halifax, the skipper said. All day they worked at overhauls. Sailors are busy people. At dawn the Nancy Belle was white. At dusk the NancyBelle was black, and by some oversight her name was carelessly painted out. The skipper told me he never did like her white. It had been his ambition to own a black ship. Now he did. But it caused a mild flutter in St. George’s. They weren’t used to quick-change colour schemes like that. At dawn next day the Nancy Belle, now black, crept out bound north. The pilot on St. David’s, who was searching for his bread and butter, and anything else that might be caught, saw her off the premises, hull down. Suddenly her sails flapped, her course was changed to west- Then to S.W. she gathered weigh. Roughly my map showed me that if she wasn’t really careful she would run right into the middle of Rum Row. Not a place at all for such a pretty little ship as nameless Nancy Belle—bound for the North with wood. I believe she proved quite a good venture to her owners. Of course nobody in Bermuda owned her. At least nobody ever told me that he did.