274 THE ATLANTIC. [cHapP. IV. 
ing a she-turtle, in the sand of the shore. They are covered 
close up, and left to be hatched by the sun.” 
The party found the islands so pleasant and so productive, 
and their ideas about Virginia were so vague, that there was a 
very general disposition to remain where they were; and for 
nearly a year, during which they were constructing vessels to 
continue their voyage, the governor and the admiral had great 
difficulty in keeping their party together, and in suppressing 
conspiracies to obstruct their work, and to prevent their far- 
ther progress. 
Early in May, 1610, however, Sir George Somers had com- 
pleted his pinnace, the Pateence; and on the 10th of May the 
little party set out, and about midnight of the 18th they “ were 
sensible of a charming odor from the land resembling that 
from the coast of Spain, near the Straits of Gibraltar.”* They 
reached Fort Algernon in safety, but they found the Virginian 
colony so badly off for provisions that Sir George Somers vol- 
unteered to return to Bermudas for supplies; and during that 
trip he died, near the site of the present town, St. George’s, 
where there is a monument erected to his memory. His 
nephew, Captain Matthew Somers, carried his uncle’s body to 
England in the old cedar pinnace. Owing to Captain Somers’s 
representations, a company was formed in England to colonize 
Bermudas, and in 1612 the first party of settlers arrived, under 
the charge of Governor Richard More. 
Since that time Bermudas has been a British colony, though 
perhaps not a very successful one; and latterly an important 
naval and military station. During the earlier part of its his- 
tory Bermudas was intimately connected with Virginia, and 
the account given of it in Smith’s “ History of Virginia” is at 
once so quaint and so generally correct that I can not refrain 
from giving a somewhat lengthy extract : 
* “Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea,” London, 1846. 
