Kit’s nausea soon wore off under his open-air treatment; and before many hours he was too much interested in his first look at Bermuda to think of being sick. Though he had seen many places, this was entirely different from any of the others. Here were three hundred and sixty-five little islands (so report said; and that estimate looked about right) grouped together in mid-ocean, forming a tiny kingdom far removed from the rest of the world.
After taking a pilot, the Trinidad bore down toward one of the points of the largest island, which was shaped like a horseshoe, with a large smooth bay in the hollow. There was a town on the point, which the ship seemed to be heading for; but when near it she coyly circled away to follow the shoreline in the opposite direction, almost turning on her course, entered the horseshoe bay, and steamed for several hours, still skirting the shore, among tiny islets, nearly grazing half-hidden rocks, turning and twisting in here, out there, till she reached a smaller bay making in from the large one, on whose shore was another and larger town.
“How do you like that for a channel?” Mr. Clark asked. “It is called the most intricate channel in the world, and I suppose it is. That first town was St. George’s. We had to go so close to it because the channel runs that way. This place is Hamilton, the capital. Have you noticed that most of the people live in white marble houses?”
“Yes, I have been wondering at that,” Kit answered. “They must have marble quarries here.”
“Most strangers wonder at it when they first see the islands,” the purser went on. “But they are not all millionaires here, as you might think. Those walls are made of rough stone, plastered over and whitewashed; and from the sea they look exactly like marble. There are more queer things here than you could put in a sea-chest, and it’s a pity we’ll not have more time. They don’t quarry their stone out, you know, like other people, but cut it out with saws. It’s soft stuff, like that building-stone you must have seen in Marseilles, but hardens when exposed to the air. Now if you want to see a novel way of docking a ship, just watch.”
On shore was a broad street, with no buildings on the water-side except a long, low iron shed that was nothing but pillars and roof, with no walls. A great many colored people waited on the wharf, and a few whites, and Kit noticed two big round timbers lying near the edge, with a little pile of planks. The Trinidad was carefully brought to a stop about thirty feet from the wharf, her further progress being prevented by a hidden ledge of rocks; and a gang of colored laborers immediately began to shove out the heavy timbers, with a little help from the ship’s donkey engine and winches. In a few minutes one end of each timber rested on the wharf and the other end upon the ship’s deck, making the skeleton of a substantial bridge. To these large timbers the men lashed smaller cross-pieces, then laid on the planks for a flooring, and in about twenty minutes the steamer was connected with shore by a bridge strong enough for much heavier work than would be required of it.
There was part of one afternoon, while the Trinidad lay at Bermuda, that both the purser and his assistant were at liberty; but that was not long enough for the favorite drive to St. George’s.
“There’s one place that we could go, five or six miles from town,” Mr. Clark said, “and that’s the Walsingham caves and Tom Moore’s house.”
“Moore’s house!” Kit repeated; “you don’t mean the poet, Thomas Moore, I suppose.”
“That’s the man,” the purser answered. “He lived here for some time. It is just a nice drive out to his house, and the caves are very near it. But as to going out there with you, no I thank you! The caves are very spooky-looking places, dark and slippery; and you admit yourself that you are a hoodoo on shore. When you go to Monte Cristo’s castle, you are locked in a cell. When you go to that church on the hill, the elevators break down. When you go with me to the pitch lake, I am all but drowned. If I should go to the caves with you, I’d no doubt be buried alive. I beg to be excused.”