principles. They built their own schooners of their own cedar-wood,
and sailed them themselves with a crew of their own black slaves. The
invariable round-voyage was rather a complicated one. The first stage
was from Bermuda in ballast to Turks' Island, in the British Caicos
group. At Turks' Island for two hundred years salt has been prepared
by evaporating sea-water. The Bermudian owner filled up with salt, and
sailed for the Banks of Newfoundland, where he disposed of his cargo
of salt to the fishermen for curing their cod, and loaded up with
salt-fish, with which he sailed to the West Indies. Salt-fish has
always been, and still is, the staple article of diet of the West
Indian negro; so, his load of salt-fish being advantageously disposed
of, he filled up with sugar, coffee, rum, and other tropical produce,
and left for New York, where he found a ready sale for his cargo. At
New York he loaded up with manufactured goods and "Yankee notions,"
and returned to Bermuda to dispose of them, thus completing the round
trip; but I still refuse to credit the story of other and less
legitimate developments of mercantile enterprise. Of course, should
Britain be at war with either France or Spain, and should a richly
loaded French or Spanish merchantman happen to be overtaken, things
might obviously be a little different. The Bermudian owner might then
feel it his duty to relieve the vessel of any objects of value to
avoid tempting the cupidity of others less scrupulous than himself;
but I cannot believe that this was an habitual practice, and should
the dusky flag ever have been hoisted, I feel certain that it was only
through sheer inadvertence.

I know of one country house in Bermuda where the origin of all the
beautiful things it contains is above all suspicion. The house stands
on a knoll overlooking the ultramarine waters of Hamilton Harbour, and
is surrounded by a dense growth of palms, fiddle trees, and spice