Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 180, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1912 — The Bright Bermudas [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Bright Bermudas

By Frances Grosvenor

HE gad-about, globe-trotting English and Americans, always looking for something new, have turned their restlessness to good account and located many a pleasant corner, favored by nature, on the old earth. Also, they spread tne glad tidings when they find a place worth while, and straight way mcny others fol- • low, to see for themselves. In this way the play-grounds of the Americans have been established.

Let a place be comparatively easy of access, have attractions of climate and i scenery, natural beauty and historic interest, its fortune Is made or its doom is sealed, depending upon the way you look at it For the ! tourist, be he of the globe-trotting or the annual vacation variety, will begin to turn his iface thither, in ever increasisg numbers. There are the Bermuda Islands, for instance. They are about forty hours sail (pretty snappy sailing) from New York, and the number of i tourists who visit them annually outnumbers |the native population by a third. It is no wonider, for within so short a distance of the rush and roar and turmoil and splendor and splurge of New York, lies this small group of many lislands; a little, tranquil, well-governed, easygoing world, made up of dark green verdure, gay with flowers, set in the most vividly blue sea that over was. Imagine a New Yorker in i the thick of things, wqary of winter and more i weary of strife, with his fancy turning to a place where there is no hurry, no worry, no skyscrapers, no hoarse horn of automobile, no clang of trolley nor splutter of motorcycle, no brass band, vociferous newly-rlch, no abject, incapable, disheartening poverty, and where no one seemh anxious to get his money away from i him by hook or crodk; it is no wonder that the I spring-time isles look good to him. And the 'Chicagoan, in his big, sooty, slovenly town, 'living whole-heartedly where they have “two 'seasons —winter and August," where the thermometer skips from withering heat to ling cold in an hour or so and the population believes in the coming of spring in the face of everything to the contrary. A small bright, sightly world, made up of deep green Islands, set in a sea of turquoise and sheltered by a wall of reefs, never very cold, never very hot, always bright with sunlight, Bermuda appeals to him. The Islands are dotted with towns and villages; quaint, old-time places, with narrow lanes of streets. The houses are built of coral rock and look as if they might last forever. Thjs coral rock is easy to quarry and is sawed in blocks for building. It seems to answer every purpose and makes a fire department next to superfluous. So many islands (one for every day in the year, they tell you) make any number'of little bays and harbors and occasionally short stretches of beautiful beach. The clean sand is either gleaming white or pale pink from the admixture of tiny particles of red coral. The roadways wind about, cfllmbing and descending over the rolling surface, and walled with coral rock, which has been cut away to make the grades easy. These roadways wind too much and those in the villages are too narrow for automobiles. Besides the auto would not harmonise with the scheme of things and is not needed; for the Bermudian world is so small. The total area is only about twenty square miles. The drives are delightful with their walls of

coral lined with flowering shrubs and their continuous panorama of lovely views. The oleander and hybiscus make additional walls of blossoms. Bermuda lilies and purple morning glories are everywhere. The blossoms are very large. Every little way one glimpses a comfortable looking home set back among cedar trees and provided with lawn and flowers and thrjfty garden patches. And the vivid sea is always near. It seems a 'kindly world, inhabited py kindly, self-respecting people. The islands are really very poor in natural resources; the soil is shallow and carefully conserved, only twelve-inch in depth on an average. But the people make the most of what they have. There are no fields of grain, but the good, old, faithful Bermuda onion brings many a dollar home, and potatoes, celery and lettuce are shipped to New York. Lilies we cultivated for export, the bulbs bringing in a respectable revenue. But the tourists, they are the “crop” that is most Important. Big hotels and little ones, inns and tea-rooms, show places, carriages, sailing craft and shops are all subsisting upon the growing streanref visitors that flows to them. The tourists actually go hunting atjout for souvenirs for which to spend money and the supply is really meagre. There are few things made in Bermuda or

found in Bermuda offered for sale. The shop keepers don’t make a pretense that their trlnkets are produced in the Islands. This is refreshing, any way, and the surprised patron buys a pin with an angelfish on it, ofensunel (made in Sweden), or a strand of o|oljjta>m Italy), out 1 of sheer thankfulness aQj||||Mi his way rejoicing. The shops are antiquated, American ideas, but that is part (OMMNh of the place. The Bermudians strive to be up-to-date. The islands are like • maid whom fate has seen fit to superb beauty and charm but no money. King Cophetua (in the guise of the NewTorker) and everybody else stands ready shlp her and burn insense in theljMgy of nioney before her. Nature has provided the islands > withmany curious show places in addition to natural beauty. There are caves with strange and beautiful formations of stalactites and stalagmites. There are grottoes and pools and bays and tiny islands; as round as a wedding ring, and as alluring. There ' kre the famous sea gardens where everyone goes in glass-bottomed boats to see the fishes at home, through the clear water. But they can be seen best at the Aquarium on Agar Island.

This structure was bunt for a magazine by the British government, and Is rented to the Bermuda Biological Society for a trifling amount with the understanding that the government may take possession upon short notice, at any time, In case of necessity. Here one may See the wonderfully colored fishes, as vivid as jewels, and many curious Inhabitants of the sea. Some of them are hideous to look at, like the octopus, and some of them seem grotesque replicas of land animals. Bermuda Is garrisoned by a regiment of British Infantry. On Sunday mornings the Karri son parade followed by music of the military band tempts a throng of people to Prospect Barracks. The band is exceptionally fine and gives a concert twice during the week in Hamilton, the capital of the Islands. The Dockyard Is one of the show places, be-, Ing an important naval station, and Gibb’s Hill Lighthouse, whose long flight of winding steps It Is worth while to climb, is another. From here there is an unforgetable view of the whole of the little world of Bermuda, set in the vast, glorious ocean, and a chance to see at close range the great lamp. But what pleases the child of the bustling, modern, changing “States" most of all, is the quaintness of the old towns. At St. George, the former capital, everything it seems remains about as it was two or three centuries ago. The oldest church, St. Peter’s, still uses its silver communion service, the gift of William HI. The Governor’s pew and the Admiral’s pew make us smile at their antiquated attempts at pomp but the beautiful tablets on the wall lead the fancy quickly back to the beginning of things for us. There is so much dignity and grave grace in the language of tribute to "Alured Popple Esq. The Good Governor,” and on other tablets setting forth the virtues that we still delight to honor. And between the lines on many, or in a single word, is betrayed the longing for home and England which in those days was so very far away. 7 , Think of the courage necessary to face a sea voyage which might last a few mon th j! Think of it especially after the usual experience in sailing from New York to these fair isles in two days on a fine modern steamship. All those smartly dressed ladies and brisk, valiant looking men who came aboard the night before, where are they the morning after? They are wishing they had a tablet erected to their memory—anywhere. Everybody gets seasick on the way to Bermuda, and it is never any better coming back —it’s worse But this is a part of the play and considered so beneficial' that to be exempt entitles you to feel that you haven’t had your money’s worth. There are a number of things, besides the delightful climate and the old ducking stool, which we would gladly bring back to these United States with us. Among them are the gentle manners and voices of the people and their Llgh average of education (everybody has to go to school there), and, above all, the general tidiness of everything and everybody. There are no unsightly scrap-heaps there. The only things near them are a few old, dismantled, sailing boats, moored in a quiet bay, sorrowfully waiting to be cut up into firewood. Their day is done long ago and that of the Lusitania is here. But sailing craft still transport freight in Bermudian waterways and ferrymen carry passengers in row boats between the villages. It is very Charming, this glimpse of antiquated, leisurely, cheerful life, within easy reach of ns.