not; we supplicated, she
was serene. The hotel had not been expecting an inundation of two
people, and so it seemed that we should have to go home dinnerless.
I said we were not very hungry a fish would do. My little maid answered,
it was not the market-day for fish. Things began to look serious; but
presently the boarder who sustained the hotel came in, and when the case
was laid before him he was cheerfully willing to divide. So we had much
pleasant chat at table about St. George's chief industry, the repairing
of damaged ships; and in between we had a soup that had something in it
that seemed to taste like the hereafter, but it proved to be only pepper
of a particularly vivacious kind. And we had an iron-clad chicken that
was deliciously cooked, but not in the right way. Baking was not the
thing to convince this sort. He ought to have been put through a
quartz-mill until the "tuck" was taken out of him, and then boiled till
we came again. We got a good deal of sport out of him, but not enough
sustenance to leave the victory on our side. No matter; we had potatoes
and a pie and a sociable good time. Then a ramble through the town,
which is a quaint one, with interesting, crooked streets, and narrow,
crooked lanes, with here and there a grain of dust. Here, as in
Hamilton, the dwellings had Venetian blinds of a very sensible pattern.
They were not double shutters, hinged at the sides, but a single broad
shutter, hinged at the top; you push it outward, from the bottom, and
fasten it at any angle required by the sun or desired by yourself.

All about the island one sees great white scars on the hill-slopes.
These are dished spaces where the soil has been scraped off and the coral
exposed and glazed with hard whitewash. Some of these are a quarter-acre
in size. They catch and carry the rainfall to reservoirs; for the wells
are few and poor, and there are no natural springs and no brooks.

They say that the Bermuda climate is mild and equable, with never any
snow or ice, and that one may be very comfortable in spring clothing the
year round, there. We had delightful and decided summer weather in May,
with a flaming sun that permitted the thinnest of raiment, and yet there
was a constant breeze; consequently we were never discomforted by heat.
At four or five in the afternoon the mercury began to go down, and then
it became necessary to change to thick garments. I went to St. George's
in the morning clothed i