or, Enchanted Isles
by Herman Melville
SKETCH SIXTH.
BARRINGTON ISLE AND THE BUCCANEERS.
“Let us all servile base subjection scorn, And as we be sons of the earth so wide, Let us our father’s heritage divide, And challenge to ourselves our portions dew Of all the patrimony, which a few hold on hugger-mugger in their hand.”
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“Lords of the world, and so will wander free, Whereso us listeth, uncontroll’d of any.”
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“How bravely now we live, how jocund, how near the first inheritance, without fear, how free from little troubles!”
Near two centuries ago Barrington Isle was the resort of that famouswing of the West Indian Buccaneers, which, upon their repulse from theCuban waters, crossing the Isthmus of Darien, ravaged the Pacific sideof the Spanish colonies, and, with the regularity and timing of a modernmail, waylaid the royal treasure-ships plying between Manilla andAcapulco. After the toils of piratic war, here they came to say theirprayers, enjoy their free-and-easies, count their crackers from thecask, their doubloons from the keg, and measure their silks of Asia withlong Toledos for their yard-sticks.
As a secure retreat, an undiscoverable hiding-place, no spot in thosedays could have been better fitted. In the centre of a vast and silentsea, but very little traversed–surrounded by islands, whoseinhospitable aspect might well drive away the chance navigator–and yetwithin a few days’ sail of the opulent countries which they made theirprey–the unmolested Buccaneers found here that tranquillity which theyfiercely denied to every civilized harbor in that part of the world.Here, after stress of weather, or a temporary drubbing at the hands oftheir vindictive foes, or in swift flight with golden booty, those oldmarauders came, and lay snugly out of all harm’s reach. But not only wasthe place a harbor of safety, and a bower of ease, but for utility inother things it was most admirable.
Barrington Isle is, in many respects, singularly adapted to careening,refitting, refreshing, and other seamen’s purposes. Not only has it goodwater, and good anchorage, well sheltered from all winds by the highland of Albemarle, but it is the least unproductive isle of the group.Tortoises good for food, trees good for fuel, and long grass good forbedding, abound here, and there are pretty natural walks, and severallandscapes to be seen. Indeed, though in its locality belonging to theEnchanted group, Barrington Isle is so unlike most of its neighbors,that it would hardly seem of kin to them.
“I once landed on its western side,” says a sentimental voyager longago, “where it faces the black buttress of Albemarle. I walked beneathgroves of trees–not very lofty, and not palm trees, or orange trees, orpeach trees, to be sure–but, for all that, after long sea-faring, verybeautiful to walk under, even though they supplied no fruit. And here,in calm spaces at the heads of glades, and on the shaded tops of slopescommanding the most quiet scenery–what do you think I saw? Seats whichmight have served Brahmins and presidents of peace societies. Fine oldruins of what had once been symmetric lounges of stone and turf, theybore every mark both of artificialness and age, and were, undoubtedly,made by the Buccaneers. One had been a long sofa, with back and arms,just such a sofa as the poet Gray might have loved to throw himselfupon, his Crebillon in hand.
“Though they sometimes tarried here for months at a time, and used thespot for a storing-place for spare spars, sails, and casks; yet it ishighly improbable that the Buccaneers ever erected dwelling-houses uponthe isle. They never were here except their ships remained, and theywould most likely have slept on board. I mention this, because I cannotavoid the thought, that it is hard to impute the construction of theseromantic seats to any other motive than one of pure peacefulness andkindly fellowship with nature. That the Buccaneers perpetrated thegreatest outrages is very true–that some of them were mere cutthroatsis not to be denied; but we know that here and there among their hostwas a Dampier, a Wafer, and a Cowley, and likewise other men, whoseworst reproach was their desperate fortunes–whom persecution, oradversity, or secret and unavengeable wrongs, had driven from Christiansociety to seek the melancholy solitude or the guilty adventures of thesea. At any rate, long as those ruins of seats on Barrington remain,the most singular monuments are furnished to the fact, that all of theBuccaneers were not unmitigated monsters.
“But during my ramble on the isle I was not long in discovering othertokens, of things quite in accordance with those wild traits, popularly,and no doubt truly enough, imputed to the freebooters at large. Had Ipicked up old sails and rusty hoops I would only have thought of theship’s carpenter and cooper. But I found old cutlasses and daggersreduced to mere threads of rust, which, doubtless, had stuck betweenSpanish ribs ere now. These were signs of the murderer and robber; thereveler likewise had left his trace. Mixed with shells, fragments ofbroken jars were lying here and there, high up upon the beach. They wereprecisely like the jars now used upon the Spanish coast for the wine andPisco spirits of that country.
“With a rusty dagger-fragment in one hand, and a bit of a wine-jar inanother, I sat me down on the ruinous green sofa I have spoken of, andbethought me long and deeply of these same Buccaneers. Could it bepossible, that they robbed and murdered one day, reveled the next, andrested themselves by turning meditative philosophers, rural poets, andseat-builders on the third? Not very improbable, after all. For considerthe vacillations of a man. Still, strange as it may seem, I must alsoabide by the more charitable thought; namely, that among theseadventurers were some gentlemanly, companionable souls, capable ofgenuine tranquillity and virtue.”
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