SPANISH Point was a place of mystery and endless pleasure in the sea-swept days of our youth as members of the numerous Harris family. Residing nearby, we spent most of the summer in the shallow, warm and sparkling waters of the small beaches on the north side of the peninsular.

In the bay to the south was the mysterious wreckage we now know was the remains of the great and first Royal Naval Floating Dock, HMS Bermuda. Little did we know that we walked and played over the campsite of the first recorded "negro" to visit Bermuda, along with his crewmates for whom Spanish Point is named.

Venturilla was his name and he has now been ferried into present memory by the naming of a new fast shuttle boat in his honour.

Of the man himself, little is known and had he not been attacked by the night-travelling Bermuda cahows, his presence here may have gone unrecorded. His name is Spanish and likely to be a derivation of ventura, for venture or adventure.

He may have been a slave or a free man; he may have been a Moor from the north or an African from south of the Sahara. "Negro" is the translation of his person given in the main source available, so we must await some scholarly look at the original script of the diary of Diego Ramirez, Venturilla's caption, to agree absolutely on his origins.

As far as we will probably ever know, Venturilla was the first African to set foot in Bermuda. If we judge him not on the colour of his skin but on the content of his character, he has another claim to fame, for he and his shipmates helped to create the first detailed map of Bermuda, published here in colour for the first time. They also gave rise to the oldest place name in Bermuda, that of Spanish Point.

Before we look at the map in detail, we can recap the adventure that brought Venturilla to Bermuda for an enforced three-week visit in 1603. In that year, probably out of Havana, the small fleet of Don Luis de Cordoba was assailed by storms in the Florida Strait and four ships were lost.

Another vessel under Captain Diego Ramirez then suffered misfortune when it struck the reef on the north side of Bermuda. Damaged but not sinking, the ship made its way over the reef and found a place of refuge in the Great Sound, most likely in the bay at Spanish Point, the last home of the floating dock.

While repairs were under way, Ramirez and some of the men explored the island in a small boat. On one occasion at night, the rudder broke and Venturilla, possibly being a shipwright, was sent ashore with a lantern to cut a piece of replacement cedar.

Soon after, he cried out in such a manner that Ramirez thought he was being carried off by the devils said to inhabit Bermuda. Going to his rescue, they found Venturilla under a Hitchcock-like attack of birds, which were attracted to the light of the lantern.

THE men resolved the matter by clubbing to death some 500 cahows, starting the species on the road to possible extinction by this and subsequent massacres ("The birds were so plentiful that 4,000 could be taken in a single bag"). Their provisions being lost in striking the reef, the cahows, wild pigs and numerous species of fish, provided the hungry mariners with a full larder when they left Bermuda.

The explorers gave a fulsome description of Bermuda, even noting the presence of tobacco plants, cultivated by some earlier shipwrecked mariners. The island was covered with cedar and palmetto forests, with some other evergreens.

The large herds of swine had made highways leading to watering holes, along which the bark of the palmettos was worn through, being used by the pigs as back-scratchers. Crows were so abundant that they used the mariners' heads and arms as perches. The absence of mosquitoes was made up for by the presence of innumerable flies.

The travels of the mariners around Bermuda are recorded in their map, which has one glaring exception, the absence of Harrington Sound. This suggests it may have been landlocked at that time, or was simply not observed in any part. Castle and St. George's Harbours are merged into one, with indentations such as Tobacco Bay on the north and eastern coast of St. George's Island exaggerated. The bay at Spanish Point is also larger than life, as it was there that Ramirez's ship was probably beached for repairs.

On an island between Spanish Point and the Dockyard a cross is shown, with the name Diego Ramirez below. Ramirez placed the cross there with instructions for later mariners on the location of fresh water.

LATER on it became associated with a treasure story whereby the cross, lined up from Spanish Point, indicated the buried loot at a place near Westgate prison. The three Dockyard islands of Watford, Boaz and Ireland are also charted. The main island of Great Bermuda is considerable distorted, but after three weeks of drinking palmetto berry juice, the result is nonetheless the remarkable and earliest surviving detailed chart of Bermuda, a hundred years after its discovery.

Four hundred and two years later, Venturilla would undoubtedly be pleased to see his namesake ferrying passengers past his old home at Spanish Point every day of the year, but in the evenings, he would perhaps wonder where all the cahows have gone.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. The views expressed here are his opinion and not necessarily those of the trustees or staff of the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm, to PO Box MA 133, Sandys MABX, or by telephone at 734-1298.