with the soil. In this manner was a foundation made that could
not fail to sustain a garden luxuriant in its products, aided by the
genial heat and plentiful rains of the climate. Shrubs, flowers, grass,
and ornamental trees, however, were all the governor aimed at in these
public grounds; the plain of the crater furnishing fruit and vegetables
in an abundance, as yet far exceeding the wants of the whole colony. The
great danger, indeed, that the governor most apprehended, was that the
beneficent products of the region would render his people indolent; an
idle, nation becoming, almost infallibly, vicious as well as ignorant.
It was with a view to keep the colony on the advance, and to maintain a
spirit of improvement that so much attention was so early bestowed on
what might otherwise be regarded as purely intellectual pursuits which,
by creating new wants, might induce their subjects to devise the means
of supplying them.

The governor judged right; for tastes are commonly acquired by
imitation, and when thus acquired, they take the strongest hold of those
who cultivate them. The effect produced by the Colony Garden, or public
grounds, was such as twenty-fold to return the cost and labour bestowed
on it. The sight of such an improvement set both men and women to work
throughout the group, and not a dwelling was erected in the town, that
the drill did not open the rock, and mud and sand form a garden. Nor did
the governor himself confine his horticultural improvements to the
gardens mentioned. Before he sent away his legion of five hundred,
several hundred blasts were made in isolated spots on the Reef; places
where the natural formation favoured such a project; and holes were
formed that would receive a boat-load of soil each. In these places
trees were set out, principally cocoa-nuts, and such other plants as
were natural to the situation, due care being taken to see that each had
sufficient nourishment.

The result of all this industry was to produce a great change in the
state of things at the Reef. In addition to the buildings erected, and
to the gardens made and planted, within the town itself, the whole
surface of the island was more or less altered. Verdure soon made its
appearance in places where, hitherto, nothing but naked rock had been
seen, and trees began to cast their shades over the young and delicious
grasses. As for the town itself, it was certainly no great matter;
containing about twenty dwellings,