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.