no doubt the Panama line is the best, and will be the route we shall use. But we should be delighted to see a second line opened. If Mr. Squier can accomplish his line through Honduras, we will give him great honour, and acknowledge that he has done the world a service. In the mean time, we shall be very happy to see the Lake transit re-established.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE BERMUDAS.

IN May I returned from Greytown and the waters of the San Juan to St. Thomas, spending a few days at Aspinwall and Panama on my journey, as I have before explained; and on this occasion, that of my fourth visit to St. Thomas, I was happy enough to escape without any long stay there. My course now lay to the Bermudas, to which islands a steamer runs once a month from that disagreeable little depôt of steam navigation. But as this boat is fitted to certain arrivals and despatches, not at St. Thomas, but at Halifax, and as we reached St. Thomas late on the night of the day on which she should have sailed, and as my missing that vessel would have entailed on me another month's sojourn, and that a summer month, among those islands, it may be imagined that I was rather lively on entering the harbour;

-keenly lively to ascertain whether the Delta,' such is the name of the Bermuda boat, was or was not gone on her mission.

"I see her red funnel right across the harbour," said the chief officer, looking through infinite darkness. I disbelieved him, and accused him of hoaxing me. "Look yourself," said he, handing me his glass. But all the

glasses in the world won't turn darkness into light. I know not by what educational process the eyes of sailors become like those of cats. In this instance the chief officer had seen aright, and then, after a visit to the 'Delta,' made at 2 A.M,. I went to bed a happy

man.

We started the next day at 2 P.M., or rather I should say the same day, and I did no more than breakfast on shore. I then left that favoured island, I trust for the last time, an island which I believe may be called the white man's grave with quite as much truth as any place on the coast of Africa. We steamed out, and I stood on the stern taking a last look at the three hills of the panorama. It is certainly a very pretty place seen from a moderate and safe distance, and seen as a picture. But it should be seen in that way, and in But my

no other.

We started, and I, at any rate, with joy. joy was not of long duration, for the Delta' rolled hideously. Screw boats-propellers as the Americans call them with their wonted genteel propriety-always do roll, and have been invented with the view of making sea passages more disagreeable than they were. Did any one of my readers ever have a berth allotted to him just over the screw? If so, he knows exactly the feeling of being brayed in a mortar.

In four days we reached Bermuda, and made our way into St. George's harbour. Looking back at my fortnight's sojourn there it seems to me that there can be no place in the world as to which there can be less to be said than there is about this island,-sayings at least of the sort in which it is my nature to express itself. Its geological formation is, I have no doubt, mysterious. It seems to be made of soft white stone, composed mostly

of little shells; so soft, indeed, that you might cut Bermuda up with a handsaw. And people are cutting Bermuda up with handsaws. One little island, that on which the convicts are established, has been altogether so cut up already. When I visited it, two fat convicts were working away slowly at the last fragment.

But I am no geologist, and can give no opinion favourable or otherwise as to that doctrine that these islands are the crater of an extinct volcano; only, if so, the seas in those days must have held a distance much more respectful than at present. Every one of course knows that there are three hundred and sixty-five of these islands, all lying within twenty miles in length and three in breadth. They are surrounded too by reefs, or rocks hidden by water, which stretch out into the sea in some places for eight or ten miles, making the navigation very difficult; and, as it seemed to me, very perilous.

Nor am I prepared to say whether or no the Bermudas was the scene of Ariel's tricksy doings. They were first discovered in 1522, by Bermudez, a Spaniard; and Shakespere may have heard of them some indistinct surmises, sufficient to enable him to speak of the “still vexed Bermoothes." If these be the veritable scenes of Prospero's incantations, I will at any rate say this— that there are now to be found stronger traces of the breed of Caliban than of that of Ariel. Strong, however, of neither; for though Caliban did not relish working for his master more keenly than a Bermudian of the present day, there was nevertheless about him a sort of energy which is altogether wanting in the existing islanders.

A gentleman has lately written a book-I am told a very good book-called "Bermuda as a Colony, a Fort

ress, and a Prison." This book I am sure gives accurately all the information which research could collect as to these islands under the headings named. I made no research, and pretend only to state the results of cursory observation.

As a fortress, no doubt it is very strong. I have no doubt on the matter, seeing that I am a patriotic Englishman, and as such believe all English fortifications to be strong. It is, however, a matter on which the opinion of no civilian can be of weight, unless he have deeply studied the subject, in which case he so far ceases to be a civilian. Everything looked very clean and apple-pie ; a great many flags were flying on Sundays and the Queen's birthday; and all seemed to be ship-shape. Of the importance to us of the position there can be no question. If it should ever come to pass that we should be driven to use an armed fleet in the Western waters, Bermuda will be as serviceable to us there, as Malta is in the Mediterranean. So much for the fortress.

As to the prison I will say a word or two just now, seeing that it is in that light that the place was chiefly interesting to me. But first for the colony.

Snow is not prevalent in Bermuda, at least not in the months of May and June; but the first look of the houses in each of its two small towns, and indeed all over the island, gives one the idea of a snow storm. Every house is white, up from the ground to the very point of the roof. Nothing is in so great demand as whitewash. They whitewash their houses incessantly, and always include the roofs. This becomes a nuisance, from the glare it occasions; and is at last painful to the eyes. They say there that it is cleanly and cheap, and no one