Cape of the Woods

Cape of the Woods is a prominent geographical feature on Treasure Island, a heavily wooded promontory on the island's west coast that serves as a key landmark in the treasure hunt and a site of significant narrative events, including Jim Hawkins's desperate landing and the final ambush of the mutineers.

Geography and Setting

Cape of the Woods is located on the western side of Treasure Island, north of Haulbowline Head. The chart marks it as a cape buried in tall green pines that descend to the margin of the sea. The island's general appearance is grey-coloured woods covering a large part of the surface, broken by streaks of yellow sand and many tall trees of the pine family, some singly, some in clumps. The hills run up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock, and the Spy-glass, the tallest hill, is strangely shaped, running up sheer from almost every side and then suddenly cut off at the top like a pedestal. The air around the island smells freshly, unlike the stagnant, feverish odour of the southern anchorage. The sea around Treasure Island is never quiet; great rollers thunder by day and night along the external coast, and there is scarce a spot on the island out of earshot of their noise.

Jim Hawkins's Perilous Approach

During his sea adventure in the coracle, Jim Hawkins, after being swept past Haulbowline Head, set his sights on Cape of the Woods as a more promising landing place. He remembered Silver's warning about a current that sets northward along the whole west coast and, seeing he was already under its influence, reserved his strength for an attempt on the kindlier-looking cape. As he drew near, he could see the cool green tree-tops swaying together in the breeze, and he felt sure he should make the next promontory without fail. However, the current carried him past the point, and he was soon tortured with thirst, the glow of the sun and the salt water caking his lips. The sight of the trees so near at hand made him sick with longing, but the current had already swept him beyond the cape, leading him to the discovery of the Hispaniola under sail.

The Plateau and the Treasure Hunt

The plateau that borders the anchorage, adjoining the southern shoulder of the Spy-glass and rising towards the south into Mizzen-mast Hill, is dotted thickly with pine-trees of varying height. From this vantage point, the party of treasure-hunters, including Silver and Jim, could see Cape of the Woods fringed with surf before them. The plateau itself is somewhat tilted towards the west, and from it one can look down upon the anchorage and Skeleton Island, and see across the spit and the eastern lowlands a great field of open sea upon the east. The very largeness of the view increases the sense of solitude. It was on this plateau, near the tall pine that marked the treasure site, that the final ambush occurred, with Dr. Livesey, Gray, and Ben Gunn firing from among the nutmeg-trees to kill Merry and scatter the remaining mutineers.

Ecological and Narrative Significance

The island's natural environment is consistently portrayed as both beautiful and threatening. The woods are grey and melancholy, the marsh steams with a poisonous brightness, and a peculiar stagnant smell hangs over the anchorage, leading Dr. Livesey to stake his wig there is fever there. The stockade itself is built from unsquared trunks of pine, and the clearing of timber for its construction destroyed a fine and lofty grove, leaving only stumps. The cold evening breeze whistles through every chink of the rude building, sprinkling the floor with a continual rain of fine sand. The Cape of the Woods, with its tall green pines descending to the sea, represents one of the island's more hospitable zones, yet it remains part of a landscape that is ultimately hostile and unforgiving, a place where nature itself seems to conspire against the intruders.