Tales of cannibalism are told . . . .This was the Starving Time.
When the leaves were red and gold, England-in-America had a population of
four hundred and more. When the dogwood and the strawberry bloomed,
England-in-America had a population of but sixty.
Somewhat later than this time there came from the pen of Shakespeare a play
dealing with a tempest and shipwreck and a magical isle and rescue thereon.
The bright spirit Ariel speaks of "the still-vex'd Bermoothes." These were
islands "two hundred leagues from any continent," named after a Spanish
Captain Bermudez who had landed there. Once there had been Indians, but
these the Spaniards had slain or taken as slaves. Now the islands were
desolate, uninhabited, "forlorn and unfortunate." Chance vessels might
touch, but the approach was dangerous. There grew rumors of pirates, and
then of demons. "The Isles of Demons," was the name given to them. "The
most forlorn and unfortunate place in the world" was the description that
fitted them in those distant days:
All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement Inhabits here: some heavenly
power guide us Out of this fearful country.
When Shakespeare so wrote, there was news in England and talk went to and
fro of the shipwreck of the Sea Adventure upon the rocky teeth of the
Bermoothes, "uninhabitable and almost inaccessible," and of the escape and
dwelling there for months of Gates and Somers and the colonists in that
ship. It is generally assumed that this incident furnished timber for the
framework of The Tempest.
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