For God and Gold

by Julian Stafford Corbett

I employed myself in studying navigation and the Spanish tongue with Frank, nor were ship duties wanting, for it was ever our captain's way to have the gentlemen tally on a rope as well as the meanest mariner when need was.

He hated nothing so much as idleness, and those who had no work had always to find play, which he himself was not slow in furnishing.

'I know nothing,' he used to say, 'that breeds discontent and faint hearts like the union of these two, dullness and idleness.'

So with games, and music, and rummaging and cleaning arms, our spirits were kept up when they were like to sink for want of work. Frank was very earnest about this on our present voyage, for as we neared the Indies the hands, being young, began to frighten themselves with tales of the great strength and richness of the Indian cities, until, had it not been for Frank's care in stopping and preventing such idle talk with other inducements, they would have come to think Nombre de Dios as big as London and as strong as Berwick.

Nor were we allowed to lose sight of the godly purpose of our enterprise. Prayers were ordered every day night and morning, which our captain read very earnestly, never forgetting a prayer to God for the Queen's Majesty, her most honourable council, and the speedy 'making' of our voyage, the same having a very good effect, for the half at least of the crew were as good Puritans as himself.

Thus it was in a very hopeful and godly state that, on the evening of the thirty-fifth day we saw the Isle of Guadeloupe towering on the horizon like a priceless jewel in the setting sun. With all our music and many a gay flourish of our trumpets we saluted it, and that night as we lay a-hull our musicians gave us a double portion of melody.

With the first morning light we ran in and anchored off a little rocky island three leagues off Dominica, where we lay three days to refresh our men. And here we landed and wandered at will, to taste for the first time the surpassing loveliness of the tropics.

How shall I tell of those first days in the Indies? My pen seems a dumb dead thing when I think of it. Much as I had thought, and dreamed, and read of them, this waking, this seeing was far beyond all. On either hand the heights of Guadeloupe and Dominica towered serenely out of their soft beds of lustrous green. The glittering waters between were studded with island gems ablaze with every bright hue which God has made, that we may taste the glory which is to come. All about us was the hum of bright flies, the sparkle of feather and gorgeous flowers, and the rustle of the scented air through the crowded canes as it passed on to wave with dreamy motion the heavy crowns of the slender palms. And over all, with faint and soothing voice, there came in through the dense growth of vine and brake the deep-toned booming of the surf.

Such is the pale shadow that I have power to paint of the banquet on which our souls feasted as we lay in the deserted huts which the Indians, who came there to fish, had built. So rich and heavenly was that world that I could not wonder how men were led on to think that a little farther, only a little farther, must be a land where gold and gems would be as the sand and pebbles here, nay, where beyond some glittering hill they would see the open gates of Paradise.

Not only by the memory of all that beauty does the time live in my mind, but also because it was here I first had real speech with my wronged brother. As we lay in those Dryad's bowers our sorrow seemed so far away and little in this New World, so dim beside its dazzling glory, that it was for a time half forgotten amidst the thousand new things that crowded our thoughts. Like two Sileni we lay, as Mr. Oxenham had said, in the arms of lady Nature, and all that was sad melted in the glow of her luxuriant life.