A. M Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 451 



may have been the original wall, on the same site. (Plates lxxix 

 and lxxx.) 



The island itself is a barren-looking place, with thin dry soil 

 between the rough limestone ledges, supporting a scanty crop of 

 wiry grasses, weeds, and seaside shrubs, with an abundance of large 

 prickly pears ( Opuntia), but with no trees, except a very few small 

 stunted cedars. According to the early writers, it was originally 

 well wooded with cedar, like most of the other islands. The smaller 

 land crabs burrow there, wherever there is sandy soil. 



The native lizard is abundant among the ruins and in the crevices 

 of the ledges, and can often be seen basking in the warm sunshine, 

 but it is a very watchful and agile creature, and can seldom be taken 

 alive. It has the habit, common to many lizards, of quickly drop- 

 ping off its tail when in danger. (See Part III, ch. 31.) 



The tropic birds are generally to be seen, in their season, flying 

 overhead and screaming threateningly at the intruder into these 

 their solitudes. They breed in the holes of the cliffs, and sometimes 

 in the drains of the old forts and barracks. (See plate lxxii.) 



The total effect of the place, to an imaginative person, is weird 

 and desolate, like the ancient ruins of the old world. Governor 

 Moore, in 1612, very soon after his arrival with the first settlers, 

 mounted a gun or two on this island. In 1613 he built a cedar plat- 

 form on the " Gurnett Head," and mounted four guns upon it, and 

 he probably also had built or commenced a cedar redoubt or maga- 

 zine, as usual at that time. In 1613 (about September) two strange 

 vessels, supposed to be Spanish, attempted to enter the harbor, but 

 were driven away by the governor in the fort. The governor him- 

 self, who, according to Governor Butler, " was a very good gunner," 

 twice discharged a " great gun " at one of the vessels, hitting it at 

 the second shot. In this connection it is recorded by Governor 

 Butler (1619) that it was lucky that the vessels did not attack the 

 fort, for there were only four guns mounted and they had at the fort 

 only about twenty men, " many of thoes very weake and feeble with 

 want of foode," and they had but little gunpowder and only one 

 spare shot. His account is as follows : 



" Wherein certainely ther was evidently a great deale of devine 

 providence for the good of the poore plantation ; for ther wer not at 

 that time above twenty persons at the Gurnetts head, and many of 

 thoes very weake and feeble with want of foode; ther wer then only 

 fou re peeces mounted, the which though they wer all of them 

 laden, yet was ther not above three quarters of a barrell of 

 powder besides, and one only shott." 



