like granite that has been dressed and not polished. Thus all the way up
the diminishing shaft for fifty feet; then it begins to take the
appearance of being closely wrapped, spool-fashion, with gray cord, or of
having been turned in a lathe. Above this point there is an outward
swell, and thence upward for six feet or more the cylinder is a bright,
fresh green, and is formed of wrappings like those of an ear of green
Indian corn. Then comes the great, spraying palm plume, also green.
Other palm trees always lean out of the perpendicular, or have a curve in
them. But the plumb-line could not detect a deflection in any individual
of this stately row; they stand as straight as the colonnade of Baalbec;
they have its great height, they have its gracefulness, they have its
dignity; in moonlight or twilight, and shorn of their plumes, they would
duplicate it.

The birds we came across in the country were singularly tame; even that
wild creature, the quail, would pick around in the grass at ease while we
inspected it and talked about it at leisure. A small bird of the canary
species had to be stirred up with the butt-end of the whip before it
would move, and then it moved only a couple of feet. It is said that
even the suspicious flea is tame and sociable in Bermuda, and will allow
himself to be caught and caressed without misgivings. This should be
taken with allowance, for doubtless there is more or less brag about it.
In San Francisco they used to claim that their native flea could kick a
child over, as if it were a merit in a flea to be able to do that; as if
the knowledge of it trumpeted abroad ought to entice immigration. Such a
thing in nine cases out of ten would be almost sure to deter a thinking
man from coming.

We saw no bugs or reptiles to speak of, and so I was thinking of saying
in print, in a general way, that there were none at all; but one night