The Islands of Unwisdom

by Robert Graves

  The Chief Pilot, glad that he could at last move freely about the ship, set his men to swab and fumigate with rosemary the stinking quarters now left vacant. Carpenters patched the upper works where they had been stripped for fuel, and the sailors repainted the hull above the water line, but complained much of the stifling heat and, in their desire for the open sea, began asking when they might expect to be sent back to Peru. He could only counsel patience.

  On shore, the Colonel showed himself as capable as he was industrious, and the natives did not attempt to interfere with his building. Every morning when I went across with the daily orders—for Don Alvaro governed the settlement from the Great Cabin while his Residency was being constructed—I noticed the progress made since the day before. A belt of forest was being cleared, though the want of axes and saws was greatly resented. To show his goodwill, Don Alvaro ordered the carpenters to give up theirs, which they did with ill grace, not yet having completed their repairs; he also found some old swords, intended for barter, which could be used as wood-knives. We had a blacksmith with us who undertook to beat out axe-heads from old iron in the galeot’s ballast; but it was at last disclosed that the forge which figured in our list of stores had been left behind in Peru. Being a resourceful man, the blacksmith said that he could have made shift, if only the Purser had found him tongs, but without a pair of these to handle the hot metal, he was at a loss. It was a tradition of his craft, he told us, that God, foreseeing that no tongs could be made by man without the use of tongs, had created the first pair from nothing; and that Adam, to whom these were given, bequeathed them to Tubal Cain, the first smith to set up his sign. The General was grieved at the set-back and, after complaining loudly against the contractors, declared that Miguel Llano had never informed him of their failure to send the forge, and that the deficiency should have been made good at Paita.

  Another lack was nails, and it was proposed to use rope instead; but the Chief Pilot would not release any from his own stores. He argued that the carpenters would eventually get their saws back in good condition, whereas once a rope had been cut to lash timbers together, it was of no further use to him. Let the troops, he said, twist what they needed from coconut-fibre, as the natives did.

  Worst of all, we lacked provisions. Flour was running low, the salt beef had long been eaten and few beans or chick-peas remained. Though the soldiers did not relish the food of the island, except for pork and fowls—the natives kept fowls for the pot, of a white breed that laid few eggs and roosted high in the trees at night—Don Alvaro warned the Colonel that we must now live off the land and keep the rest of the flour in reserve. Since, however, he did not provide trade-goods to barter for victuals, the Colonel presumed an annulment of his strict rule against robbing the islanders.

  Seven villages lay within about an hour’s march of the settlement and foraging parties of from twelve to fifteen soldiers visited them frequently. The natives appeared to regard them as immortal beings who had harnessed thunder and lightning to their needs. At first, the approach of a party was the signal for flight, but later they remained quietly in their huts, and submissively gave what was asked of them; yet not by way of tribute, but because the natives of Santa Cruz consider it the height of ill manners to refuse any plea within their power to gratify. Sometimes a small gift was proffered in return for provisions, but not always, and seldom more than a battered button or playing-card.

  It was usual for our men to come back from forage with half a dozen pigs or more, many bunches of bananas, and quantities of coconuts and yams. The natives themselves led the pigs, carried the bananas on long shoulder poles and trundled the remainder along in handcarts that our wheelwrights had made for the purpose; but might not enter the settlement lest they realized how few we were. From the camp gate, on which was carved a Saint Andrew’s cross, in use here as a sign of tambu, or prohibition, many rows of tents could be seen, and thirty or forty huts already under construction. These would have sufficed to house hundreds of savages, and since the ships were still manned they must have greatly over-estimated our numbers. Only Malope’s subjects, whom we treated as our allies and spared all tribute, were admitted inside; but this was after Don Lorenzo, representing himself as the General’s eldest son and therefore of chieftainly rank, had gone to him with a demand for assistance in felling timber and building huts. Malope sent forty young men, commanded by his own son, who carried polished stone-axes and adzes of shell, and set about their tasks in a brisk and workman-like manner; they also taught our men the readiest way to twist rope from fibre (stripping it from the demajagua-tree as well as from the coconut) and how to lay thatch. Every tribesman was rewarded with a narrow piece of scarlet cloth to tuck into his armlet, which not only gave him wonderful delight but served as a passport and badge of friendship. Though to Spanish eyes one black-faced, sunkeneyed native looks very much like another, spies and intruders were kept away by this means; we could be certain that no possessor of a badge would willingly surrender it to a member of an alien tribe.

  Now, that everything seemed to be running on wheels, the Vicar went ashore on the 8th of October, the feast of Saint Simeon the Just. His chaplain had visited the settlement some days before to choose a site for the church, which was to be built as soon as possible, though with accommodation only for two hundred persons—our full number since the Santa Ysabel was lost. Father Juan, having sanctified the precincts with holy water and led a solemn procession around them with censers and banners, said mass for us and laid the first stone of the chancel, dedicating it not to Saint Veronica, but to Saint Simeon whom he did not wish to offend. The choir of pages afterwards sang an anthem, ‘I will go up into the House of the Lord,’ their voices ringing out sweet and clear; and hardly had they done when a noise of laughter and singing arose outside the camp and Malope’s men, crying ‘Amigos, amigos!’, approached at a run for their daily labours.

  The famous miracle of Tumbes recurred to the good Father’s mind and he hastily ordered a cross to be made of two wooden posts, which Juan Leal the sick-attendant took up and carried towards the gate, followed by the acolytes and the banners. At the Vicar’s desire the troops uncovered and bent their knees, whereupon the natives devoutly obeyed their example and crossed themselves in imitation. Having prostrated himself in prayer before the holy emblem, he was then inspired to continue his progress through the gate and down the coast-road, the tribesmen falling in at the rear. Our musicians struck up a gay march and the cross was conveyed all the way to Malope’s village, where it was set up in front of the assembly-house amid the plaudits of the inhabitants, who were overjoyed at the honour paid them. Father Juan then preached a sermon upon the Redemption, enacting the story of Christ’s passion with gestures of such pathos that he drew tears from my eyes, and the villagers seemed to understand and suffer too. When we came away, we left them all kneeling in a wide circle around the cross, except for Malope and his sons who lay prostrated before it. Though the Colonel was displeased that nearly a day’s labour had been lost by this interlude, the more pious-minded rejoiced that a beginning had at last been made of the principal task which we had been sent to perform.

  The weather remained unsettled, and frequent falls of rain from the north-east swelled the river, revealing the marshy nature of the soil; the humid heat between squalls caused us such discomfort that we would gladly have run naked like the savages. Meanwhile the Barreto brothers obeyed the Colonel’s orders with a show of alacrity and led many successful forages; but they had not forgotten what had been agreed with their sister. They began to complain in public about the work that they were required to do. Lorenzo would say: ‘Upon my word, Diego, I cannot understand why our people have so tamely resigned themselves to settle this wretched spot! A child could have chosen a better situation; but the Colonel always acts without forethought and bears everything before him like a cataract.’

  Diego would answer: ‘Brother, you are right! There’s fever-grass growing in rank tufts all the way from the g
uard-room to the river: an infallible portent of sickness. Besides, if the savages turn treacherous, we may expect attacks from all four quarters. The headland chosen by the General is not only far healthier but its only approach is by a causeway so narrow that three men could hold it against an army.’

  Yet in trying to undermine the Colonel’s authority they had done Doña Ysabel a double disservice. Those who rightly suspected that she had put these insubordinate words into their mouths became more attached than before to the Colonel, who cared for them like a father and never spared his efforts for the common good. But the ill-disposed took the complaint a stage further and began to ask themselves why they had left the rich and roomy province of Peru, where no man is poor at least in hopes, and come to this foetid and God-forsaken island at the farthest limit of the world, where no good prospects awaited them. True, they argued, the site chosen by the Colonel was bad, but the General by allowing his own choice to be overruled had confessed that no better was available. ‘It is high time,’ they said, ‘to cut our losses and either continue our voyage to the gold-bearing isles—for this is plainly not one of them—or else admit failure and sail home.’

  Juarez and Matia shared the opinion that the land was rich and salubrious; no natives had been found suffering from fever and the settlement was altogether free of mosquitoes, which always abound in unhealthy districts; the council had come to a proper decision, and this should now be loyally carried into effect. ‘The right way to pacify this island,’ Juarez told me one day, ‘which the Colonel has in mind, is to station a few soldiers in each village. They’ll depose the chieftains and take over their lands and privileges. It’s the sword-hilt makes the best cross: that’s what he says, and he’s my cock! He’ll keep a company at headquarters to reinforce any garrison that may find itself in trouble. But as time goes by the natives will be disarmed, converted and forced into serfdom; which will enable us to occupy more villages, and more yet, until the entire island is ours and par-celled into estates, and we can stuff roast pork every day of our life. The Colonel doesn’t hold with fribbling. To make a parade of tenderheartedness, he says, is only to convince the black men that we’re cowards.’

  ‘But he must obey the General,’ said I.

  ‘Why, yes, Don Andrés, he knows his duty as well as any of us, but he needn’t take the orders too seriously, do you see, because the General doesn’t expect it; they’re only issued to make good reading for posterity and as a sop for King Philip’s conscience. Those large estates promised to us settlers: how will we ever get them, except by conquest? The General knows well enough that warriors who love their homes and gardens, and who outnumber us by more than a thousand to one, won’t yield them without a fierce struggle. But first things first. Our present task is to secure our base, and the sooner that’s done the sooner we’ll be free to go out on garrison. If there’s no set-back, by Twelfth-night you’ll see me a chieftain with coloured feathers on my head, bracelets on my arms, and two or three little black wives bustling about me, those gay cardinal-flowers stuck in their ears and noses. They’ll stir my soup, and scour my breastplate, and run their nails along the seams of my shirt—faith, Don Andrés, I’ve never been so lousy in my life, yet I haven’t had time or patience to go a-hunting these ten days—and I’ll own the largest herd of the fattest hogs in the South Seas.’

  ‘Two or three wives, you circumcized Turk?’ cried Matia. ‘You’re a glutton for trouble. Myself, I think little enough of the women here. Even if they weren’t so devilishly black they couldn’t hold a candle to the Marquesan girls. Now there was beauty and ardour for you! But these creatures seem to be a cross between pig and monkey, and they’re tattooed all over, as close as a printed page.’

  ‘I prefer them to your idle whores of Santa Cristina,’ said Juarez. ‘Under the bedclothes in the dark one willing wench is as good as another, and these islanders at least have their womenfolk under control. They don’t allow them to frisk about all day in the bushes or the water; they keep them hard at work. I hold that woman, black, brown or white, is created for the service and pleasure of man. What’s your opinion, Don Andrés?’

  Not wishing to become involved in a theological dispute, I took my leave. I have always felt a certain reverence for women, like every Christian who adores the Virgin with all his heart. Her virtue and holiness have long atoned for the original fault of our Mother Eve; and since it is recorded that she was born without sin, lived without sin, became God’s mother and at her death was received into Heaven as a creature already perfect—why, then only a fool would err with the heathen philosopher Aristotle who regarded the male as God’s master-work, but the female as a by-work or prevarication. Though I have indeed known women whose deceitful and bloody-minded pride made them worse by far than the wickedest man alive, the female nature in general seems to me milder, more charitable and, though this may seem a paradox, less readily estranged from good principle than the male. The Devil showed great subtlety indeed when he tempted our Mother Eve first, and in the disguise of a talking snake. It is a common frailty of women to be deceived by novelties; but it is my belief that, had he gone to Adam instead, and persuaded him (with equal ease) to eat of the apple, Eve would have refused to share it. ‘Drop that forbidden fruit at once, husband,’ she would have cried, ‘and run to make your peace with the Lord God, if you ever wish to lie with me again!’

  ***

  I was kept more busily employed than ever since it had been realized that as the settlement grew so the value of the building plots would rise. Every householder had enclosed as much land as he could, by marking his claim with wooden pegs. It now devolved on me to survey and map the whole area, and to draft title-deeds after the General had reckoned how much land should go with each house, according to the owner’s rank or the amount of his venture. All were dissatisfied with what was allotted them, the more so because Doña Ysabel had insisted that no one might sell, mortgage, or otherwise transfer his property. At the owner’s death it might pass to his widow or children, or to a blood relation within three degrees, but was meanwhile inalienable; and should he leave no heirs, it would revert to the donor, namely the General or his successors in perpetuity.

  Don Alvaro further instructed me to survey and distribute all arable land within arquebus-shot of the settlement. Every householder might claim a strip, its size again proportionate to his rank or venture, but would hold it on the same terms as his house plot and also be required to pay tithes to the municipality. These tithes, though destined to set up and maintain public services, seemed an intolerable burden on the land. Bitter disputes then arose about the privileges of citizens, and had to be settled by a constitution which Don Alvaro asked me to draft for his approval and which, when I had finished it, he tore in pieces and re-wrote with more insistence upon military and civil obligations than upon rights and privileges. He was thus obliged to appoint magistrates as well as Justices of the Peace; also a Factor, a Registrar of Mines, a Quartermaster-General, and an Overseer of Markets; and, as though I had not work enough already, he made me the Municipal Secretary, but never thought to increase my salary. I should have preferred by far the sinecure office of Registrar of Mines.

  Few understood what the task of colonization implied: many a settler had imagined that he would go off with his gun and family in whatever direction he pleased and, once he had found a valley to his taste, might claim it as his own. There he would lord it over his black serfs in perfect independence, owing no further obligation to the General, unless it were to rally in his defence against English freebooters or native rebels. The soldiers had been ready enough to build a city that would later serve them as arsenal, market and fort; but when they learned that their liberties were more curtailed here than in Peru, and that the General regarded the island as his private demesne, not only denying them the freehold of their property but even reserving the right to withdraw the copyhold at will, they were disillusioned and downcast indeed. Some now complained that the land allotted them ha
d not enough heart to grow maize or wheat, and that though an occasional yam-pudding with grated almonds was well enough, they did not intend to subsist on roots and nuts the year round.

  Sebastian Lejia, who had some little skill with the pen and was what the troops call a barrack-lawyer (meaning a malcontent who tries to persuade his fellows that they are robbed and abused by their officers), borrowed paper, pen and ink from me one day on the pretext that he wished to make his Will, and then wrote out the following memorial for signature by his comrades:

  We, the undersigned, being loyal and industrious subjects of King Philip II, are dissatisfied with the situation of this settlement, which has a thousand disadvantages, and therefore humbly beg our Governor, General Don Alvaro de Mendaña y Castro, to abandon it and find a more suitable site elsewhere in this island of Santa Cruz; or, if that be impossible, to fulfil his promise of taking us to the gold-bearing regions of his former discovery where he, in turn, will be free to enjoy the titles and privileges conceded him by His Majesty.

  At Gracious Bay, the 13th October, 1595.

  This memorial had been secretly prompted by Don Diego as a stab at the Colonel. But the last phrase, which Sebastian added on the advice of another, was directed against Don Alvaro: it was a sly reminder that he had adopted the title of Marquis prematurely and published a constitution for a city which he had no authority to build. Seven soldiers signed their names, but fearing that an example would be made of them unless many more did the same, they went from hut to hut that evening, soliciting signatures by promises and threats, until some forty more were on the paper. When Juarez refused to sign, they attempted to murder him, a little before midnight, by thrusting a sword through the side of the tent where his palliasse lay; but he had gone out to untruss, and when they heard him coming back, they mistook him for an officer and fled. He saw the slit in the canvas and took his arms and bedding to the guard-room, where he told Matia what he knew of the matter.