276 | THE ATLANTIC. [onap. rv. 
and drawing with it of his substance vnto a certaine depth 
where it congeales; the hardest kinde of it lies under the red 
ground like quarries, as it were thicke slates one upon another, 
through which the water hath his passage, so that in such places 
there is scarce found any fresh water, for all or the most part 
of the fresh water commeth out of the sea draining through 
the sand, or that substance called the Rocke leaving the salt be- 
hinde, it becomes fresh.” 
Representative government was introduced in Bermudas so 
early as the year 1620, and in 1621 the Bermudas Company of 
London, in whom the government was at that time vested, is- 
sued a liberal charter. That charter remained in force only till 
1685, when, probably on account of the importance of the isl- 
ands as a military station, it was annulled by the Home Govy- 
ernment; and since then the governors have been appointed by 
the crown, and the laws of the colony have been enacted by a 
legislature consisting of the governor and nine members of 
council appointed by the crown, and thirty-six members of as- 
sembly elected by the nine parishes into which the islands are 
divided. Slavery appears to have existed in Bermudas from 
the first in a mitigated and patriarchal form. The legislative 
bodies of Bermudas and of Antigua were the only two among 
our colonies which abolished slavery without the intervention 
of apprenticeship. The proportion received by Bermudas of 
the compensation voted by Parliament was £50,584—£27 4s. 
11d. for each of 4203 slaves. The number of the civil popula- 
tion in 1871 was 12,426, of whom 5030 were white and 7396 
colored. The colored element in Bermudas is by no means en- 
tirely African. In the earlier days of the settlement many 
laborers and slaves were brought from Virginia and other parts 
of North America; and one may often recognize the aquiline 
nose and characteristic features of the North American Indian, 
now, however, except in one or two families, very much masked 
by negro intermixture. 
