Black Hill Cove

Black Hill Cove is the small, sheltered inlet on the English coast where the Admiral Benbow Inn stands, and it is the opening setting of Treasure Island. It is the place where the old sea-captain Billy Bones takes lodging, where Jim Hawkins grows up, and where the first acts of the adventure—the arrival of Black Dog, the visit of Blind Pew, and the death of Billy Bones—unfold. The cove's geography, with its cliffs, beach, and proximity to the hamlet, shapes the early events and remains a touchstone of home and memory for Jim throughout the voyage.

Geography and Setting

Black Hill Cove is a "handy cove" and a "pleasant sittyated grog-shop," as Billy Bones describes it upon his arrival. It is a small, sheltered inlet on the coast, with cliffs and a beach where the sea laps softly. The Admiral Benbow Inn stands at the cove, and the surrounding area includes a hamlet a few hundred yards away, on the other side of the next cove, and a road that leads to Bristol. The cove is also near Kitt's Hole, a place where a little lugger was seen, and it is from this direction that the blind beggar Pew makes his appearance. The geography of the cove—its isolation and its position along the coast road—makes it an ideal hiding place for a man like Billy Bones, who seeks to avoid his former shipmates.

The Captain's Arrival and Life at the Cove

Billy Bones, the "brown old seaman with the sabre cut," arrives at the Admiral Benbow Inn in Black Hill Cove, plodding to the door with his sea-chest following in a hand-barrow. He chooses the inn because it is described as lonely, and he settles in, spending his days hanging around the cove or upon the cliffs with a brass telescope, and his evenings in the parlour drinking rum and water. He asks daily if any seafaring men have gone by along the road, and he is always sure to be silent as a mouse when any such is present. Jim Hawkins, the innkeeper's son, is enlisted to keep a "weather-eye open for a seafaring man with one leg" and to report to the captain. The cove becomes the stage for the captain's daily routines and his growing dread of discovery.

The Mysterious Events at the Cove

The cove is the setting for the first of the mysterious events that rid the Hawkins family of the captain. One January morning, Black Dog, a pale, tallowy creature wanting two fingers of his left hand, appears at the inn and confronts Billy Bones. The two old shipmates quarrel, and Black Dog flees, streaming blood from the left shoulder, with the captain pursuing him. The captain aims a tremendous cut at Black Dog, which is intercepted by the inn's signboard, leaving a notch that Jim remembers to this day. Later, the blind beggar Pew arrives at the cove, and his visit leads to the captain's death by apoplexy. The cove is also where Jim and his mother flee after the captain's death, hiding under a bridge as the pirates ransack the inn.

The Cove as Home and Memory

For Jim Hawkins, Black Hill Cove is home. He is born and raised there, and it is the place he leaves behind when he sets off on the adventure to Treasure Island. When he returns briefly before the voyage, he finds the inn repaired and repainted, with a new apprentice boy, and he feels a pang of loss at the sight of this clumsy stranger who is to stay in his place beside his mother. The cove remains a touchstone of memory for Jim, and even in the midst of his sea adventures, he dreams of home and the old Admiral Benbow. The cove's significance lies not only in the events that unfold there but in what it represents: the ordinary world from which Jim is called to adventure and to which he can never fully return.