groves of green, the little rocky bays and inlets of the island, appear
so tempting; but to all my entreaties the visiting surgeon who came on
board returned a decided negative.

A few hours after his visit, however, an Indian basket, containing
strawberries and raspberries, with a large bunch of wild flowers, was
sent on board for me, with the surgeon's compliments.

I amuse myself with making little sketches of the fort and the
surrounding scenery, or watching the groups of emigrants on shore. We
have already seen the landing of the passengers of three emigrant ships.
You may imagine yourself looking on a fair or crowded market, clothes
waving in the wind or spread out on the earth, chests, bundles, baskets,
men, women, and children, asleep or basking in the sun, some in motion
busied with their goods, the women employed in washing or cooking in the
open air, beside the wood fires on the beach; while parties of children
are pursuing each other in wanton glee rejoicing in their newly-acquired
liberty. Mixed with these you see the stately form and gay trappings of
the sentinels, while the thin blue smoke of the wood fires, rising above
the trees, heightens the picture and gives it an additional effect. On
my husband remarking the picturesque appearance of scene before us to
one of the officers from the fort who had come on board, he smiled
sadly, and replied, "Believe me, in this instance, as in many others,
'tis distance lends enchantment to the view." Could you take a nearer
survey of some of those very picturesque groups which you admire, I
think you would turn away from them with heart sickness; you would there
behold every variety of disease, vice, poverty, filth, and famine--human
misery in its most disgusting and saddening form. Such pictures as
Hogarth's pencil only could have pourtrayed, or Crabbe's pen described.