John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Would God I had a net!"

Around a bend just past the place where they had crawled ashore he saw a startling sight — all along the foreshore, below the line of weed and driftwood that marked high tide, were sheets of white paper; others rolled and curled in the rim of the sea. The thought that there might be people on the island made his face burn, not entirely with joy — in fact, it was a curious relief he felt, small but undeniable, when the papers proved to be the tale of Hicktopeake, Laughing King of Accomack; but he could not as yet say plainly what it was that relieved him. He gathered all the pages he could find, though the ink had run so that only an occasional word was legible: they would, when dry, be good for lighting fires.

He started back with them, thinking idly of John Smith's adventures. Did this curious pleasure stem from the fact that he, like Smith, was in terra incognita, or was there more to it? He hoped they would find no Indians, at least, like the fearsome fellows Smith had found spearing fish along the shore. .

" "Sheart!" he cried aloud, and kissed the wondrous Journal.

An hour later their dinner was on the fire: seven respectable perch, half a foot long after cleaning, roasted on a green laurel turnspit, and on a thin piece of shale such as could be picked up anywhere along the cliffs, four crabs, frankly an experiment, fried in their natural juices. The hard-shelled ones could not be speared, but in pursuit of them Bertrand had found these others — similar in appearance but with shells soft as Spanish kid — brooding in clumps of sea-grass near the shore. Nor did they want for water; in a dozen places along the base of the cliff Ebenezer had found natural springs issuing from what looked like layers of hard clay, whence they ran seawards across the beach on the beds of softer clay one encountered every few hundred feet. One had, indeed, to take care in approaching these springs, for the clay beds were slippery and in places treacherously soft, as Ebenezer learned: without warning one could plunge knee-deep into what looked rock-hard on the surface. But the water was clean and sweet from filtering through the stone, and so cold it stung the teeth.

To get full benefit of the sun they did their cooking on the beach. Bertrand, humbled anew by his master's inspiration, attended the meal; Ebenezer made use of a fallen tree nearby for a back rest and was content to chew upon a reed and regard the sputtering crabs.

"Where do ye fancy we are?" inquired the valet, whose curiosity had returned with his good spirits.

"God knows!" the poet said cheerfully. " 'Tis some Atlantic isle, that's sure, and belike not giv'n on the charts, else I doubt me Pound would choose the spot to plank us."

This conjecture pleased the valet mightily. "I have heard tell of the Fortunate Islands, sir; old Twigg at St. Giles was wont to speak of 'em whene'er her gout was paining."

"Well I recall it!" Ebenezer laughed. "Didn't I hear from the cradle how she stood watch all the voyage from Maryland, hoping for a sight of them?"

"Think ye this is the place?"

"I'faith, 'tis fair enough," the poet granted. "But the ocean swarms with isles that man knows naught of. How many times dear Anna and I have pled with Burlingame to tell of them — Grocland, Helluland, Stokafixa, and the rest! How many fond hours I've pored over Zeno the Venetian, Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, and good Hakluyt's books of voyages! E'en at Cambridge, when I had better done other things, I spent whole evenings over ancient maps and manuscripts. 'Twas there at Magdalene, in the antique Book of Lismore, I saw described the Fortunate Islands dear old Mrs. Twigg yearned for, and read how St. Brendan found them. 'Twas there I learned of Markland, too, the wooded isle; and Frisland and Icaria. Who knows which this might be? Haply 'tis Atlantis risen from the sea, or the Sunken Land of Buss old Frobisher found; haply 'tis Bra, whose women have much pain in bearing children, or magic Daculi, the cradle island, where they go for gentler labor."

"It matters naught to me," said Bertrand, "so we be not killed by salvages. 'Tis a thing I've feared for since we stepped ashore. Did ye read what manner of husbands the wenches have?"

"I've shared your fear," Ebenezer admitted. "Some isles are bare of men; others, like famed Cibola, boast wondrous cities. Some are like Estotiland, whose folk are versed in every art and read from books in Latin; some others are like her neighbor Drogio, where Zeno says the salvages eat their captives."

"Pray Heav'n this is not Drogio!"

"We shall climb to the cliff top when we've eaten," Ebenezer said. "If I can see the island whole, I may be able to name it." He went on to explain that, while the location and size of islands varied widely from map to map, there was some agreement among cartographers as to their shape. "If 'tis the form of a great crescent, for example, 'twill of necessity be Mayda; if a small one, 'tis doubtless Tanmare, that Peter Martyr spoke of. A large parallelogram would be Antillia; a smaller one Salvagio. A simple rectangle we shall know for Illa Verde, and a pentagon for Reylla. If we find this isle to be a perfect circle, we must look farther for its inland features: if 'tis cut in twain by a river we shall know it for Brazil, but if instead 'tis a kind of ring or annulus about an inland lake, the which hath sundry islets of its own, then Heav'n hath smiled on us as ne'er on Coronado, for 'twill be Cibola, the Isle of the Seven Golden Cities!"

" 'Sheart, may we find it so!" said Bertrand, turning the fish to brown. " 'Twere not like folk in a golden city to eat up strangers, d'ye think?"

"Nay, 'tis more likely they'll take us for gods and grant our every pleasure," Ebenezer declared.

"Marry, I hope and pray 'tis the Isle of Seven Cities, then; I shall have three and you the rest, to make up for losing Malden! Doth the book say aught of the women in these towns, whether they be fat or thin, or fair of face?"

"Naught that I can recall," the poet replied.

"I'God, let us make short work of these fish, sir!" Bertrand urged, sliding them from the laurel spit to the clean-washed slates they had found to eat from. "I cannot wait to see my golden towns!"

"Be not o'erhasty, now; this may not be Cibola after all. For aught we know it may lie in the shape of a human hand, in which case our goose is cooked: Hand-of-Satan hath such a shape, and 'tis one of the Insulae Demonium - the demons' isles."

This final possibility chastened them sufficiently to do full justice to the perch and soft crabs, which they seasoned with hunger, ate with their fingers, and washed down with clam-shellfuls of cold spring water. Then they stuffed an extra soft crab each into their pockets, grease and all, and climbed through the ravine to the top of the cliff, whence to their chagrin they could see no more than open water on one side of them and trees on the other. The sun was still but forty-five degrees above the eastern horizon; there was time for some hours of exploration before they need think of dinner and a shelter for the night.

"What course do ye propose, sir?" Bertrand asked.

"I have a plan," said Ebenezer. "But ere I tell it, what course do you propose?"

" 'Tis not for me to say, sir. I'll own I have spoken out of turn before, but that's behind me. Ye have saved my life and forgiven the harm I've done ye; I'll dance to any tune ye call."

Ebenezer acknowledged the propriety of these sentiments, but took issue with them nevertheless. "We are cast here on some God-forsaken isle," he said, "remote from the world of bob-wig and dildo. What sense here hath the title Poet Laureate, or the labels man and master? Thou'rt one man, I another, and there's an end on't."

Bertrand considered this for a rnoment. "I confess I have my preferences," he said. "If 'twere mine to decide, I'd strike out inland with all haste. Haply we'll find one or two golden cities ere dinnertime."