. We saw upward of a million cats in
Bermuda, but the people are very abstemious in the matter of dogs. Two
or three nights we prowled the country far and wide, and never once were
accosted by a dog. It is a great privilege to visit such a land. The
cats were no offense when properly distributed, but when piled they
obstructed travel.

As we entered the edge of the town that Sunday afternoon, we stopped
at a cottage to get a drink of water. The proprietor, a middle-aged
man with a good face, asked us to sit down and rest. His dame brought
chairs, and we grouped ourselves in the shade of the trees by the door.
Mr. Smith--that was not his name, but it will answer--questioned us
about ourselves and our country, and we answered him truthfully, as a
general thing, and questioned him in return. It was all very simple
and pleasant and sociable. Rural, too; for there was a pig and a small
donkey and a hen anchored out, close at hand, by cords to their legs, on
a spot that purported to be grassy. Presently, a woman passed along, and
although she coldly said nothing she changed the drift of our talk. Said
Smith:

"She didn't look this way, you noticed? Well, she is our next neighbor
on one side, and there's another family that's our next neighbors on the
other side; but there's a general coolness all around now, and we don't
speak. Yet these three families, one generation and another, have lived
here side by side and been as friendly as weavers for a hundred and
fifty years, till about a year ago."

"Why, what calamity could have been powerful enough to break up so old a
friendship?"

"Well, it was too bad, but it couldn't be helped. It happened like this:
About a year or more ago, the rats got to pestering my place a good
deal, and I set up a steel trap in my back yard. Both of these neighbors
run considerable to cats, and so I warned them about the trap, because
their cats were pretty sociable around here nights, and they might get
into trouble without my intending it. Well, they shut up their cats for
a while, but you know how it is with people; they got careless, and sure
enough one night the trap took Mrs. Jones's principal tomcat into camp
and finished him up. In the morning Mrs. Jones comes here with the
corpse in her arms, and cries and takes on the same as if it was a
child. It was a cat by the name of Yelverton--Hector G. Yelverton--a
troublesome old rip, with no more principle than an Injun, though you
couldn't ma